Complaints & connections · borters.ch
The valves no longer close — compression and movement carry the treatment, taking it easy makes it worse.
Also known as: varicose veins · chronic venous insufficiency · CVI
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
In the leg veins the blood has to travel upward against gravity. Two things help: the calf muscles, which act like a pump when walking, and the valves in the veins, which prevent backflow. If these valves no longer close, the blood sinks back down, the veins widen and become visible. At the beginning there are heavy, tired legs, worse in the evening and better again overnight, swelling at the ankle with the imprint of the sock, cramps in the calf at night and itching. Later the skin at the inner ankle changes: it turns brownish, hardens, and in the worst case an open sore forms there. Two distinctions matter. Thread veins are fine vessels with no disease value. And if one leg becomes thick, warm and painful within days on one side only, it is about a thrombosis and not about varicose veins. The whole thing is assessed with ultrasound, which shows which vein is leaking. The basis of every treatment is compression together with movement — and with an open sore it is the treatment itself, not the ointment.
Measuring is done in the morning, when the leg is at its slimmest. A stocking that pinches or cuts in is the wrong one — and a donning aid often decides whether it is worn at all.
Walking is the best vein treatment. Anyone who sits or stands a lot raises and lowers the toes twenty times every hour — that moves more blood than any ointment.
Only the examination shows which vein is leaking and whether the deep veins are open. Without that picture one cannot say whether sclerotherapy, catheter or surgery is the right thing.
A venous wound heals through pressure from outside, not through the dressing. It matters that the arterial circulation was checked beforehand — for that the blood pressure at the ankle is measured.
Anyone who stands a lot at work gains more from short walking breaks and compression than from putting the legs up in the evening. Excess weight and tight waistbands at the groin work in the same direction.
New one-sided swelling with warmth and calf pain belongs assessed straight away, especially after an operation, a cast, a long journey or on hormonal contraception.
In widened veins the blood flows more slowly, so they become inflamed more easily. A tender, warm cord belongs looked at, and the extent is best marked with a pen right away.
Several times a day put the legs above heart level for ten minutes; in the evening while watching television anyway.
Shower legs and arms from the bottom upwards: 30 seconds warm, 10 seconds cold, three changes, finish cold.
Compression works for as long as it is worn — it supports the vein valves from outside. Sclerotherapy and laser remove the vein; the blood then takes another route. Neither changes the predisposition, so new varicose veins are possible.
About one in three adults has varicose veins, women more often. Compression stockings work for as long as they are worn — they do not make the vein recede. After sclerotherapy or laser, the treated vein is still closed in about nine out of ten at five years; new varicose veins elsewhere are independent of that. Long standing without movement is the strongest everyday factor; the calf muscle pump does the return transport.
When you walk, the calf muscle pushes the blood upwards — it is the real pump of the leg veins. Long standing and long sitting switch it off. Walking, cycling and swimming keep it running: the varicose vein does not go away, but heaviness and evening swelling get less.
That is the typical pattern of vein trouble. Complaints that are just as bad in the morning, or that increase rather than ease with walking, speak for a different cause.
A dent that stays after taking off the socks shows fluid in the tissue. If both legs are equally affected it is usually venous or from medicines; if only one is, a closer look belongs.
Iron from broken-down red blood cells is deposited in the skin. Together with a hardening this is a warning that an open sore is coming — and the moment when compression achieves most.
The typical place for the venous wound. It is usually flat, weeping and hurts less than a wound from poor arterial supply, which sits more on toes and heel and is very painful.
Within hours to days, warm, tight, with pain in the calf: that is no longer a varicose vein picture but the question of a thrombosis — and it belongs settled the same day.
Of no significance for varicose veins. It only comes into play if one leg swells on one side and the question of a thrombosis arises — and even then the ultrasound decides.
Likewise not a value for the veins themselves, but helpful when a spot becomes hard, red and warm and a vein inflammation has to be told apart from a skin infection.
Belongs alongside when a wound on the leg refuses to heal. An unrecognised diabetes delays healing and changes the approach.
Plant vein remedies can ease symptoms — they don’t heal the leaky valves.
Can reduce swelling and heaviness (some evidence) — doesn’t change the valves.
This hormone relaxes the vein wall. This is why varicose veins often appear for the first time in pregnancy, and why they partly recede in the months after birth — which is why assessment waits half a year.
Women are affected more often than men, and for many the complaints increase in the second half of the cycle. That is not imagined — the veins really do hold more then.
Every strain raises pressure in the leg veins. 25–30 g fibre a day and enough fluid work here indirectly, but daily.
Red grapes, dark berries and citrus contain the substance group the vein preparations come from. Through food the amounts are far smaller than in the trials.
The calf muscle pump is the real valve — walking works more than any ointment.
Cold pours over the legs are the traditional application, with an immediately noticeable effect.
Assigned to holding and lifting — varicose veins, haemorrhoids and prolapses count as the same pattern in TCM. An explanation, not a finding.
What actually helps here is the calf muscle pump: movement while standing, slow and regular. That is the same in both systems.