If you’re planning to undergo varicose vein treatment, it’s necessary to be aware of the lifestyle changes that you should adopt to get the most out of treatments. Hopefully you started to incorporate some of these changes before treatment but the sooner you make these changes, the better off you will be in the short and long term. Success of treatment is also dependent on some of these changes. So, here are a few tips that can help you ensure that your varicose vein treatments deliver the best results.
One of the most important things you can do to improve healing and success after treatment is exercise. For individuals who aren’t in the habit of exercising regularly, they can start with low impact exercises like starting a walking program. Most patients are encouraged to walk 20-30 minutes twice a day after treatment. Exercise increases blood flow to the legs leading to faster healing. For patients who commonly do high impact exercises, they may need to pull back for a week or two after newer treatments like radiofrequency ablation, endovenous laser ablation, Venaseal or sclerotherapy. But they are able to return to usual exercise levels much sooner than with old time surgical procedures.
Exercise has the added benefit of constantly moving blood out of our legs with the squeezing of the leg veins with every leg muscle contraction. This reduces the possible complication of deep venous thrombosis, which is more commonly seen in patients who are sedentary and less ambulatory.
Wearing compression stockings is required after most varicose vein treatments. Compression stockings come in different lengths and degree of compression. Ideally you want to wear longer and tighter stockings like thigh highs with a compression of 30-40 mm Hg. Compression stockings squeeze the legs, just enough to push the blood pooling in the abnormal varicose veins, into the deeper veins, where the blood can be transport to the heart. Patients will need to wear compression stockings anywhere from 4-14 days depending on the procedure and severity of symptoms and disease. After treatment, patients are encouraged to continue use of the stockings but may transition to knee high stockings of a lower compression strength of 20-30 mm Hg. These stockings are more comfortable and excellent for everyday wear. Stockings are great for patients with jobs involving long hours of standing or sitting in one place, like teachers, chefs, cashiers or anyone working in retail.
Weight loss is another crucial lifestyle change many patients will need to make to avoid progression of their vein disease and to remain symptom free after treatment. Weight does plays a role in vein disease. Most patients who are overweight are usually not exercising regularly and thus have limited amount of muscle contractions and increased pooling and pressure in the leg veins. Excess abdominal fat results in increased compression of the larger pelvic and abdominal veins like the inferior vena cava. This compression leads to elevated pressure in the leg veins leading to worsening of varicose veins and vein disease. Most patients find improvement in symptoms like leg pain and swelling, just by getting closer to their ideal weight.
If you spend a lot of time sitting on the couch watching television or have a job that requires long periods of sitting, elevating your legs is a simple way to reduce symptoms in your legs. Elevating your legs uses gravity to your advantage and allows the pooling blood in the varicose veins to move up towards the heart. If possible, elevating your legs above the level of your heart will give you the best results. Some patients find it helpful to sleep with a pillow or two under their legs at night. Elevating the legs is especially important for patients dealing with significant leg swelling. For patients with vein disease, leaving the legs dangling to ground for long periods of time will result in elevated venous pressure and worsening of complaints.
These small changes in your lifestyle will certainly go a long way in ensuring good results from your varicose vein treatments and maintaining a symptom free life from varicose vein disease. However varicose vein disease is a chronically progressive problem which is affected by many factors including our genetics. Some patients may implement all these changes and still see a progression of disease. These patients should be see by a vein specialist regularly, to determine the best course of treatment or if they will need additional treatments in the future.
If you have vein disease, it’s likely your parents, grandparents or children have vein disease. Starting good lifestyle habits early means living longer with less issues from vein disease. To learn more about vein disease, visit www.centerforvaricoseveins.com or book online at https://www.centerforvaricoseveins.com/?book=1. Meet Dr. Vinay Madan, a board certified Interventional Radiologist and Phlebologist with over 25 years of experience who has successfully treated thousands of patients suffering from varicose vein disease.
