Chapter List

• Introduction
• Achilles Tendon
• Adrenal Glands
• Ankles
• Appendix
• Arteries
• Back
• Belly Button
• Birth Control
• Birthmarks
• Bladder
• Blood
• Body Hair
• Body Type
• Brain
• Breasts
• Cervix
• Childbirth
• Chin
• Circulatory System
• Clitoris
• Collarbone
• Digestive System
• Ears
• Elbows
• Emotions
• Endocrine System
• Energy
• Esophagus
• Eyes
• Fallopian Tubes
• Fat
• Feet
• Fertility
• Fingernails
• Gallbladder
• Gums
• Gynecological Exam
• Hair
• Hands
• Heart
• Hips
• Hormones
• Intestines
• Jaw
• Joints
• Kidneys
• Knees
• Larynx and Vocal Cords
• Lips
• Liver
• Lungs
• Lymphatic System
• Medical Tests
• Menopause
• Menstrual Cycle
• Moles
• Mouth
• Muscular System
• Neck
• Nervous System
• Nose
• Nutrition
• Ovaries
• Pain Relief
• Pancreas
• Pelvis
• Pregnancy
• Rectum
• Reproductive System
• Respiratory System
• Ribs
• Salivary Glands
• Scalp
• Sex
• Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• Shins
• Shoulders
• Sinuses
• Skeletal System
• Skin
• Skull
• Spine
• Spleen
• Stomach
• Stress
• Sweat Glands
• Tailbone
• Tear Ducts
• Teeth
• Throat
• Thyroid
• Toenails
• Tongue
• Tonsils
• Underarms
• Urinary System
• Urine
• Uterus
• Vagina
• Veins
• Vulva
• Wrists
• Shaping Up
• The Total Body Shaping Workoout
• Abdominals
• Biceps
• Buttocks
• Calves
• Chest
• Forearms
• Neck3
• Shoulders3
• Thighs
• Triceps
• Aerobic Conditioning

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Veins

Veins

It''s better than Route 66. The circulatory system is your very own trans-body highway: 60,000 miles of arteries, veins and capillaries that handle five quarts of blood every minute of the day.

While your arteries take care of the outgoing traffic, your veins route it back to your heart. Way out at the edge of the system are the one-cell-wide capillaries. These are where the transfer of goods--oxygen and nutrients--from blood to tissues takes place.

The capillaries merge into venules, which converge on the veins, which wend their way through the body''s town dumps, such as the kidneys and liver. There the waste is left behind, before the blood makes its way back through your veins to your heart.

The toughest part of this journey is up your legs. Given a chance to relax, your veins would stop fighting gravity and just let their load of blood pool at your feet. But the muscles in your legs help nudge the blood up the Matterhorn of your calves and thighs. And your arteries help, too. Running deeper than veins but parallel to them, the arteries pulse steadily, enhancing the work of your leg muscles.

Luckily, your veins are also equipped with one-way valves that act as roadblocks. As soon as the blood goes through, these valves momentarily slam shut to prevent any backsliding.

Pressure to Perform

Despite the long return trip that the blood has to make, the pressure in the veins still is much lower than that in the arteries. If you''re unfortunate enough to slice open a vein, it won''t spurt blood the way an artery would. In fact, most of what can go wrong with veins is more aggravating than dangerous.

Some women are alarmed by the sight of threadlike blue tracings on the sides of the nose, which are actually tiny capillaries showing through the skin. For others, the worst sight is spider veins on the thighs or knots of thick varicose veins on the back of the calves. But none of these appearances is life-threatening.

One great concern, however, is phlebitis. It''s an inflammation that happens when a vein is bruised or becomes infected and a clot forms in the vein wall. If your doctor treats it with heat and anti-inflammatory medication, your accommodating body will eventually reabsorb the clot.

Something in a Different Vein Think of all of the bathing suits that Victoria''s Secret could sell if spider veins didn''t exist. If you happen to be heir to this delicate red paisley of tiny, sprawling veins, almost always located somewhere on the luckless leg or thigh, then you think twice about flaunting the legs that bear them. There is, however, a procedure that can put the reins on telltale veins. It''s called sclerotherapy. With payment of several hundred dollars, one to a few office visits and a little bit of discomfort, you can have the family curse removed. Sclerotherapy is usually performed by a dermatological surgeon, a vein specialist called a phlebologist or a vascular surgeon. A sterile, corrosive chemical solution is injected into the chosen veins. As the chemical enters the veins, the walls dissolve and the veins essentially disintegrate. These nonfunctional veins are then absorbed back into the body. The injection requires no anesthesia, but you''ll need to wear support stockings until the site heals. Healing can take two to six weeks, according to David Green, M.D., a dermatologist at the Varicose Vein Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and a vein specialist on the staff of both Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., and the National Naval Medical Center, also in Bethesda. You can also have larger varicose veins removed with sclerotherapy. But some surgeons still "strip" the largest, a procedure called phlebectomy. If you do have a phlebectomy, it usually involves general anesthesia. A surgeon pulls a flexible wire through the unwanted vein. A hook is attached to the wire. When the surgeon draws the wire out of the body, it pulls the vein along with it. The cost for this procedure can run from $500 to several thousand dollars. Tiny blood vessels in the face can be removed with a much more delicate treatment: a laser. The laser''s light heats up the blood until it destroys the veins that hold it. Then the amazing body absorbs the remains. Fear not: You won''t be bedridden or wrapped in bandages after any of these treatments. "Side effects are minimal," says Dr. Green. "You may experience some temporary discoloration, but that will disappear in a few months." Even better news: Once the veins are gone, they''re gone. "The only chance you have of seeing them again is if they are not completely removed at the time of treatment," says Dr. Green. Women who are nursing or pregnant should wait until they are through before having varicose veins removed, Dr. Green advises. "Although the chemical solution used for sclerotherapy is not of any danger to the woman, it may potentially be dangerous to a developing fetus," he says. "Many times the condition of varicose veins improves after a woman has finished the birthing process. Given time, they just might go away on their own."

The veins can also host one killer worthy of a Quentin Tarantino movie. Deep-vein thrombosis can take a clot, or thrombus, and hurl it to the lungs, resulting in a condition called a pulmonary embolism. If the clot blocks circulation to the lung area, it can lead to death. Deep-vein thrombosis sometimes occurs when someone is hospitalized and flat on her back for a long time. That''s why doctors are always eager to get patients up after surgery or any immobilizing illness.

Blaming Mom Again

Any veins that you see on your skin''s surface and sigh about probably are just dilated or enlarged blood vessels. "Those tiny red veins that you see on your nose or cheeks aren''t really broken blood vessels. They''re tiny, dilated veins," says Brian McDonagh, M.D., founder and director of the Vein Clinics of America, based in Schaumburg, Illinois.

Women who get these visible capillaries usually are fair-skinned and tend to blush easily, says David Green, M.D., a dermatologist at the Varicose Vein Center in Bethesda, Maryland, and a vein specialist on the staff of both Howard University Hospital in Washington, D.C., and the National Naval Medical Center, also in Bethesda. While too much sun or alcohol may provoke them, if you have them, it''s probably because you inherited them from one of your parents.

The same goes for varicose veins. "I would say that at least 90 percent of varicose veins have some sort of genetic basis," says Dr. Green. But that doesn''t mean that it''s certain you''ll have them or that they''ll be as prominent as your mother''s or father''s may have been.

"You''re not necessarily doomed," says Eugene Strandness, Jr., M.D., professor of surgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle. "We see a lot of women with very mild varicose veins. But if they run in your family and you don''t take care of them, they will get bigger."

But even if they do get bigger, that doesn''t mean you''re at greater risk of having severe circulatory problems. "It''s important for women to understand that even if they have family histories of varicose veins and they do develop varicose veins, it doesn''t mean that they''ll go on to develop complications," says Dr. Strandness. "It''s rare for anyone with primary varicose veins to develop skin color changes or leg ulcers."

Keeping Glorious Gams

Nutrition and exercise are just as important to your veins as to any other body part. Exercise keeps your circulation shipshape. Good nutrition helps keep your weight on target. "Being significantly overweight is thought to be a risk factor that can worsen an inherited predisposition to varicose veins," says Alan Kanter, M.D., medical director of the Vein Centers of Orange and Torrance Counties in California.

"If your legs are in good shape, there''s less pressure on your bad veins, and your good veins work better," says Dr. Kanter.

Here are some other suggestions that might help your veins stay in hiding.

Shake a leg. Standing or sitting for more than an hour can make anyone''s legs uncomfortable. When your legs are quiet for too long, the valves in your veins get sluggish, and the blood grows stagnant. "When blood is out of circulation like that, the oxygen content of the blood is very low and more acidic. So it acts as an irritant, and your legs ache," says Dr. McDonagh.

"People with varicose veins have to move around at least once an hour," says Dr. Strandness. If you have a job that involves lots of sitting or standing in one place, get up and stretch.

Rock ''n'' roll. Here''s an exercise to stimulate circulation in your legs. Stand erect, keeping your weight well-balanced over your feet. With slow movements, lift your toes, return them to the floor, then rock forward and lift your heels. "This is especially helpful when you must stand in one spot for a long time," says Dr. Kanter.

Wear tight tights. If you jog or otherwise work out on your feet a lot, and if varicose veins run in your family, seek out tight tights in a sporting goods store or department store. Before you buy workout tights, try them on to make sure they''ll put some pressure on your legs and thighs. The pressure keeps blood flowing up your legs and helps prevent them from feeling tired and cramped, according to Dr. Green. "Buy comfortable but snug exercise clothing. Any kind of compression will squeeze in the veins," he says.

Try some lightweights. Stockings can be leg-savers. There are a number of types to choose from, offering various grades of compression. Nonprescription stockings can be lightweight, providing low to moderate compression, or heavy, providing greater compression. (You can find both kinds of stockings in drugstores and medical supply stores.)

Lightweight therapeutic stockings can be just as attractive as regular stockings, and Dr. Strandness suggests that you wear them--especially when you''re active--if you have a strong family history of varicose veins. "We don''t know for sure, but it makes good sense that they would keep superficial veins compressed and not permit distension," says Dr. Strandness. "Distended veins don''t go back to normal. They keep getting worse."

Look for gradients. Gradient, or graduated, versions of lightweight compression stockings are also available. "The compression is greatest at the ankles. Then the grading of the stockings milks the blood up the legs and thighs back to the heart," explains Dr. Green. "So the farther north you go, the less compression there is."

Or go for the heavies. If you feel that you''re in need of even more support, try heavy support hose. They may not look as snazzy as the lighter ones, but there are times when you may need to wear them. Many women get their first varicose veins when they''re pregnant and carrying all of that extra weight. "If you have a family history of varicose veins and you''re pregnant, it''s extremely important that you wear heavy gradient compression stockings during the third trimester," says Dr. Strandness.

Try what the doctor orders. Best of all, you can also get a prescription for support stockings from your doctor to make sure that they have the correct fit and strength, says Dr. Kanter. If they''re too tight, he says, "they could act like a tourniquet."

Because precise fit is so important, some doctors do not recommend over-the-counter stockings to anyone. "Proper strength can be prescribed only after a knowledgeable examiner determines the medical need of a patient," says Dr. Kanter.

Put up your feet. For a woman with varicose veins, there''s nothing comic about a stand-up routine. If you''re standing anywhere--on cold linoleum, hard concrete or the carpet-lined floor at the bank--for too long, your legs will start to hurt and feel tired.

Take the weight off whenever you can. Lie on a couch and prop your hurting leg on pillows so that it''s above chest level. Or lie on the floor and prop your leg against a wall for comfort. The blood in your leg will immediately start flowing to your heart, helped on its way by gravity. That will take the pressure off your overstrained veins, says Dr. Strandness.

Make a motion. Exercise is good, no doubt about it. "But a lot of vein specialists have the impression that certain high-impact exercises will aggravate varicose veins," says Dr. Kanter. While no studies have been done on this subject, Dr. Kanter recommends that women with varicose veins avoid jogging on hard surfaces (grass and cinders are okay). And he suggests doing low-impact aerobics instead of high-impact if you have varicose veins.

Lifting heavy weights can also aggravate varicose veins, says Dr. Kanter. If you have to strain so hard that you grunt, it''s too much pressure. Use smaller weights and do more repetitions, he suggests.

What''s safest of all? "You can walk on pretty much any surface," says Dr. Kanter. "Walking is excellent exercise. It''s what we are built for."

 

See also Circulatory System