There are a few very logical and easy to best understand reasons why women develop and then treat varicose and spider veins in the legs more often than men do.In a nutshell it can be broken down into a few ‘vein producing’ factors, such as
- Pregnancy and its consequences such as …
- Weight gain
- Hormones
- Increased Blood Volume
- Growth of New Blood Vessels
In this blog post we will examine just pregnancy and its causality for making pregnant legs more veiny.
Pregnancy can cause leg veins to enlarge and produce both large bulging varicose veins as well as the smaller more cosmetic spider veins most often seen in the legs. With pregnancy there are many factors leading to both the medical as well as the cosmetic appearance of these veins.
There is obviously a growing baby that applies an increasing amount of pressure to the veins in the legs as blood tries to travel upward towards the heart. You certainly want the baby to grow throughout the pregnancy but it also creates an ever (at most nine months but you get the point) rising pressure on the veins below it, in the legs. This increasing pressure leads to more venous blood stagnation and contributes to vein formation or enlargement.
The biggest biologic difference between men and women is the presence of hormones. While women have some testosterone but more estrogen, the situation with men is the exact opposite. During a pregnancy, there are for very many reasons, increasing levels of estrogen and other female hormones that are felt to contribute to vein formation. The hormone progesterone is believed to cause vein walls to weaken and expand. During the course of a pregnancy the levels of progesterone increase dramatically and this negatively effects the veins.
Treatment of both varicose and spider veins involves acting on the vein itself, rather than the blood within these vessels. New York Vein Specialist, Dr. Lee G. Schulman M.D. likes to point out, that like a plumber treats the pipes in a building rather than actually effecting the water carried in those same pipes, the same can be said of the work of vein treating doctors. While a pregnancy does create more veins as there is a growing uterus and fetus that needs a steady blood supply, there is also an increase in the blood volume of pregnant women.
The bad news that we failed to mention is this is only more accelerated should there be a multiple baby pregnancy. On a brighter note, today we have many minimally invasive, done in the office without the need to anesthesia vein treatment procedures, that can help both the cosmetic and medical status of these leg veins.
Should you live in the New York City or Long Island areas and desire a free vein screening and evaluation by a vein-only specialist please feel free to call us and arrange to finally get better looking and better feeling legs.