A Washington DC Vein Specialist Explains How Swollen Legs and Ankles Can Impact Your Overall Health
Do you have chronically swollen legs and ankles? Aren’t they a real bother? The swelling makes it difficult to walk or to stand for long periods of time, and it’s often painful as well. But it’s nothing to worry about – probably just a “sign of aging” or something like that, right?
Wrong. According to our Washington DC vein specialist, chronic swelling in your legs and ankles can be a sign of a more serious condition – vein disease. And vein disease is very much a real disease, one that can escalate and negatively impact your overall state of health and well-being.
What Washington DC residents should know about swollen legs and ankles
One of the most common causes of swollen legs and ankles is a condition called chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), in which the tiny valves that enable your veins to pump blood back to the heart and lungs become damaged or diseased and stop working properly. CVI negatively affects your entire circulatory system, and thus your overall state of health.
Healthy veins have the job of conveying de-oxygenated blood back to your heart and lungs, where it is re-oxygenated and then sent back through the arteries to your organs and other parts of the body. If your veins are damaged from CVI and failing to do this job, a crucial part of your body’s circulatory system is failing.
An early symptom of this failure is swelling in the legs and ankles, but left undiagnosed and untreated, the impact of CVI can quickly become much worse. For example, CVI is the most common cause of varicose veins, which if untreated can become tough, distended, and covered with skin ulcers that resist topical treatment and fail to heal. CVI is also related to more serious diseases such as deep vein thrombosis (DVT), and puts you at risk of developing blood clots in the large veins of your legs. If these clots break loose from where they formed and travel to the lungs and brain, the results can actually be fatal.
But even “just” swollen legs and ankles can disrupt your health
When swelling and accompanying discomfort and pain occurs in your legs and ankles, you start to become less mobile, and get less exercise. Inactivity has a profound effect on your overall health, and has been cited as a major cause of conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease. If the pain and discomfort become severe, you may start to miss work and want to spend less time with your friends and family. And on a psychological level, those feelings of not wanting to go out erode your self-confidence and make it a struggle to get out of bed in the mornings. Normal activities become huge tasks, and you become even more sedentary, which further erodes your mental and physical health.
What can you do about it?
The first thing you should do if you suffer from swollen legs and ankles is find out what the cause is. And this is as simple as scheduling a venous health screening at one of the best vein centers in Washington DC. These screenings are fast, painless, non-invasive, and above all, effective. Using modern diagnostic tools such as Doppler ultrasound, Dr. Hamza Rana can see beneath the skin, and detect any blockages or disease in your veins. If vein disease is found, treatment is equally fast, equally painless, and can be performed right in our Rockville varicose vein doctor’s offices. So give Dr. Hamza Rana a call today at 301-637-3088 and set up an appointment for a venous health screening. You’ll be happy you did.