How Losing Weight Can Relieve Pressure on Your Leg Veins

Are you plagued with varicose veins? Do your legs swell and ache at the end of a long day? Perhaps they feel extra heavy as if you’re clomping through mud. 

If you’re ready to banish those telltale purplish or blue jagged lines running up and down your legs, our board-certified radiologists with REDI Diagnostics Corp in Elmwood Park, New Jersey, can eliminate your varicose veins using one of a number of available treatments. 

What are the symptoms of varicose veins?

If you don’t see varicose veins, it doesn’t mean they’re not present. Fatty tissue on your legs can mask these veins. However, if you have other symptoms of discomfort, it’s important to find out what’s going on. Your radiologist at REDI DIagnostics Corp performs an ultrasound to determine whether varicose veins are the culprit. 

The following are common symptoms of varicose veins. As you’ll note, varicose veins present many symptoms other than the unwanted cosmetic effect of visible veins running down your legs. 

• Swollen legs
• Legs that ache 
• Feelings of heaviness in your legs and feet
• Leg cramps at night
• Discolored skin on your legs
• Itching and burning sensations
• Purple or blue lines 
• Rope-like bulging skin 

In addition, damaged veins can cause more serious problems. They can result in a condition called chronic venous insufficiency, which increases your chance of developing hard-to-treat leg ulcers. 

If I have my varicose veins removed, will they come back? 

We can eliminate problematic varicose veins. But is the problem solved for good? It may not be, depending in part on your lifestyle choices. You can develop additional varicose veins after your current ones are treated if your leg veins are under too much pressure. 

What does my weight have to do with my risk of varicose veins? 

If you’re overweight or obese, you’re likely to develop varicose veins. The extra weight places undue pressure on your veins. Excess fatty tissue narrows your veins and damages the valves that keep blood flowing toward your heart. 

The valves in your leg veins are one-way mechanisms. They open to push blood upward, with a motion similar to squeezing ointment out of a tube, and they close to stop blood from flowing back down your leg. 

Too much pressure on your veins and valves causes your valves to malfunction. When your valves fail, blood pools in your veins. The blood expands and becomes a varicose vein. 

Why is losing weight helpful for my varicose veins?

Losing weight is the best thing you can do to relieve pressure on your veins. Losing weight increases blood circulation. It won’t eliminate those varicose veins, but it will ease pressure on them and greatly reduce your painful symptoms such as achy, itchy legs, and legs that make you feel like you’re carrying bricks. 

Our radiologists at REDI Diagnostics Corp are here to whisk away your varicose veins. You have a role to play in helping ensure you don’t develop new ones. While your predisposition for developing varicose veins is influenced by your genetics and conditions such as pregnancy, one of the major factors causing varicose veins is being overweight or obese. 

Call REDI Diagnostics Corp or book an appointment online today if you’re troubled by unsightly varicose veins. We can help eliminate your problem veins.