Venous insufficiency is also known as chronic venous insufficiency (CVI).
Venous insufficiency is a medical condition used to describe when veins in your legs or arms have difficulty returning blood to your heart.
This can be caused by damaged valves in the veins. It is thought to result from weakness in the vein wall that leads to enlargement of the area of the vein where the valves are attached. Genetics is the primary reason for venous reflux. In some patients, venous reflux develops after a prior blood clot, which can scar the vein and
damage the valves.
Venous reflux can cause leg symptoms, often known as venous insufficiency. These symptoms include swelling, heaviness, aching, and itching. Some patients have chronic skin changes such as redness, darkening, thinning, and dryness, and they may have poor wound healing. In severe cases, some patients may develop sores, often at the ankle or the lower part of the leg, called ulcers. Ulcers may develop after minimal trauma such as bumping the shin, but ulcers
may also form spontaneously, with no trauma.
What happens if venous
insufficiency goes untreated?
Vein disease is common but often left untreated by patients. That’s why you see so many Americans walking around with those thick, ropey veins when they are wearing shorts or dresses. However, doing this causes many other negative things to happen to your body, so you become overall less healthy. It’s never recommended to leave any medical condition untreated. While every case varies patient to patient, medical conditions typically worsen over time.
Perhaps the biggest and most dangerous side effect of untreated venous insufficiency is Blood Clots. These blood clots that appear in deep veins are called deep vein thrombosis (DVT). DVT is a very serious, life-threatening condition as it can cause a pulmonary embolism (PE) if the blood clot breaks off and travels to your lungs or heart. Blood clots that travel to your heart are extremely dangerous and potentially fatal.
Blood Clots
Blood clots may appear in the arm, leg, lungs, heart, or brain. They are clumps of blood that have changed from a liquid to a gel-like or semisolid state. Blood clots become dangerous because they can easily travel from your veins to other parts of the body very fast.
If you experience sudden shortness of breath, chest pressure, difficulty breathing, seeing, or speaking it’s imperative to call 911 and get emergency help immediately.
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