What are Leg Veins?
Leg veins or varicose veins are visible bulging veins most commonly seen in the lower legs.

Human heart pumps blood to legs through arteries. After supplying oxygen and nutrients to the legs, blood returns to the heart through the veins. This upward flow of the blood is caused by the muscles in the legs.

Each time calf and thigh muscles contract while a person is walking, the veins deep inside his leg get squeezed. One-way valves help prevent blood from flowing back down the veins.

Blood from the outer layers of your legs flows into superficial veins. It is then connected to deeper veins inside the leg by perforator veins. When blood doesn't flow properly from the superficial veins to the deep veins, pressure builds up in the superficial veins.

This result in blood collecting/pooling in the veins, and these are called varicose veins/leg veins.

Causes of leg veins
Though the exact reason why leg veins develop is not fully understood, it is commonly believed that is caused due to weak veins. If a person has weak vein walls, this causes the valves in his veins to expand and separate, thus damaging them.

This damage to the valves prevents blood to travel up the veins as easily as it should and results in the leg veins.

Some other causes of the leg veins are old age, obesity, long standing or sitting, and pregnancy.

Treatment of Leg Veins
Non-surgical treatments:
In this, the doctor may advise you to wear compression stockings. Compression stockings may help the blood in your veins to flow upwards your heart and would relieve the swelling and aching of your legs. However, compression stockings do not stop more varicose veins from developing.

Surgery
Varicose vein surgery: This involves removing those superficial veins which have become varicose veins. There are many types of surgeries you can have, depending on which veins need treatment. The most common surgical treatments for leg varicose veins are :

Sclerotherapy
It involves injecting a chemical solution into the varicose veins and spider veins to damage the veins, thus causing them to close. There are two types of sclerotherapy-Liquid sclerotherapy and foam sclerotherapy. Liquid sclerotherapy is often used to treat smaller varicose veins and for larger varicose veins treatment, ultrasound guided foam sclerotherapy is used.

The operation is usually performed as a day case under local anaesthesia. Most probably, you will be given compression stockings to wear for some time.

Endovenous laser treatment This is used for treating larger leg veins. In this method, a fine laser beam is passed inside your varicose vein. The laser beam heats the inside of your vein and results in the damage of your vein wall. This causes the vein to close.

Radiofrequency ablation This leg vein treatment involves using a high frequency electrical current to heat the wall of your varicose vein. This damages the vein causing it to close.

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