If you experience swollen legs and ankles often, you know how bothersome they can be. The swelling can make it harder to walk or to stand for long periods of time, and it’s often painful as well. But if you’re like most people, you tell yourself that this swelling is just a “sign of aging” and nothing to worry about, right?
Wrong. Accrding to our New Orleans 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 impact your health and hold you back in life.
What New Orleans residents should know about swollen legs and ankles
One of the most common causes of swollen legs and ankles is chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), a condition in which the tiny valves that enable your veins to pump blood back to the heart and lungs stop working properly. 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 not doing their job properly, 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. 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. Naturally, this can keep you from achieving your goals in life, but inactivity also has a profound effect on your health. It has been cited as a major cause of conditions such as diabetes, obesity, and heart disease.
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 the best New Orleans vein treatment center. These screenings are fast, painless, non-invasive, and above all, effective. Using modern diagnostic tools such as Doppler ultrasound, Dr. Randall S. Juleff can look beneath the surface of the skin to 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 the La Bella Vita Laser and Vein Center offices. So give Dr. Juleff a call today.
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