Sarah is a 37 year old woman who has noticed only mild swelling on occasion in the past during the summer, but she is concerned because the swelling is worse this year. Sarah does clerical work and is at a desk most of the day. At the start of the summer, she noticed swelling in both her ankles and calves and it is present every day. She has a sock line and shoe line at the end of the day, but it does go away completely by the next morning. She is worried that something is going wrong.

Is This You?

• After a long day at work, your legs feel so tired and heavy that you can barely movelift them.
• You find that after a day of taking care of kids and running errands, you feel so run down that you can hardly climb the stairs to get to bed.all you can think about is how much you would like to sit down and elevate your legs.
• You want to get to the gym to get some exercise but the pain in your legs and swollen feetyou have no energy to go - quite a change for you destroys your motivation.. 

Chances are, you can relate to one of those fairly common scenarios above...or one like it.

We all know that being overweight causes a number of health problems. But did you know that it can also cause vein conditions or worsen one that you may already have? I see patients each day with vein symptoms and their complications, including weight gain. Each day I also see overweight patients who develop vein problems and leg symptoms. I would like to share with you what I have seen and help you understand the relationship between weight, vein conditions and their complications.

One particular patient story really sticks out in my mind. She was a 38-year old woman, married with a a family, trim and fit, who came to me with leg aching and a cluster of large bulging veins on her thigh.  I asked her what she really wanted to get out of her vein treatments.  She paused and then told me that what she really wanted was to be able to go on a summer river float trip without having to wear blue jeans because she was so embarrassed about her legs. She then told me that when she was a senior in high school she first noticed bulging veins on her legs and she was teased so much in gym class that she finally came home and took all of her shorts and dresses and put them in a pile in the back yard and burned them. When I met her, it had been twenty years since she had worn shorts or a dress. After vein treatments and elimination of the unsightly veins, she went on her first float trip with a bathing suit!  She was ecstatic!

Chronic venous insufficiency is a vascular and health condition that epidemiologists estimate affects between 25-40% of women and 10-20% of men in the United States. That adds up to between 115 million to 198 million in the US. Chances are high that you know someone who has chronic venous insufficiency, or maybe you even have it yourself without knowing it. But chances are also high that you may not know exactly what chronic venous insufficiency is, how to recognize it and – most importantly - what can be done to treat it. This article will give you everything you need to know to better understand the condition and get the treatment you need.

John is a 54 year-old man who had a blood clot in his right leg 3 years ago. Since then his leg has gotten progressively more swollen. He does not wear compression stockings since they are too hot for him. At the end of the day if he takes his shoes off he won’t be able to get them back on due to swelling. He gets home and immediately gets into a recliner for the evening. After waking up in the morning the swelling has improved some but not much. He has noticed a red-brown patch over the inside of his ankle which has been getting darker, and it is very tender there. He came to see me because he was worried that his circulation is getting worse and wondered if vein treatment could help.

Tina is 54 years old and has had mild swelling for years, and it started as a faint sock line. Over the past year it has gotten worse and in the evening she takes her shoes off, there is now a line where her shoes dig into the swelling. It always goes away overnight. She works retail and has to stand and it's worse on days she works. Her legs throb and ache by the time she gets home. She heads for the recliner and puts her legs up until she forces herself to make dinner, then she gets back into the recliner. She told me that she just doesn’t have any energy anymore feels like this is what happens when you get old.

Mary is a 42 year old woman who works full time and complains of heaviness and pain in her left leg. She said that this has been going on for 9 months and has been slowly getting worse. Now, her left foot is swollen. Because of that, she feels like she's carrying around a cement block on her leg and has stopped exercising. She is frustrated - she has gained 10 pounds since she's slowed down, and doesn't know what's causing it or what to do about it.

This is a scary and difficult time for us for many reasons. People are understandably fearful about the real health risk of COVID 19. Others are laid off, concerned about how to pay bills and keep food on the table. Business owners are worried about whether or not they can afford to keep their businesses running and employees paid. Anxiety is high and it affects us financially, health-wise, mentally and emotionally. Yet with all this...is there anything good that can come out of it? I would say most definitely, yes!

There has been a lot of conversation in the last few weeks about getting our lives back to normal. With COVID-19, our “new normal” now includes learning to live around a disease that is most likely here to stay. You can and should continue to exercise caution and make smart decisions, like social distancing, wearing a mask and frequent hand-washing. However, extended periods of extreme isolation are unhealthy as well. At some point you have to live your life. So until a vaccine is developed, what additional changes can you make to reduce your risk?