Page 4 - Valley Life & Health

4 SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 2019 THE MORNING CALL
■ Health

o you have bulging or uncomfortable
veins that have caused you either pain
or embarrassment?
DVaricose veins can occur in almost
anyone, and affect up to 35 percent of people
in the U.S., according to the Society for Vascular
Surgery. While the veins themselves do not cause
severe medical problems, the presence of these
veins is an indicator of venous insufficiency, which
is a condition that occurs when the veins have
problems sending blood from the legs back to
the heart.
Joseph M. Laureti, DO, FACC, board-certified
cardiologist at Easton Hospital, specializes in the
treatment of venous insufficiency and works with
his patients to help them understand this common
condition – and how treatment is not considered
or performed with a cosmetic goal in mind.
Rather, it is all about the patients’ symptoms and
preventing advanced skin color changes.

VALVES AND VEINS
We all have veins and all know what their
job is: they are elastic blood vessels that carry
the blood back to the heart after it’s carried to
all other parts of the body, including through all
of our extremities like the legs, feet, arms and
hands. The veins are normally a low-pressure
system with a series of valves that open and
close, allowing the blood to travel one-way. The
opening and closing of the valves is what allows
the blood to basically travel ‘against gravity.’
When those valves aren’t working normally,
the blood can begin to go backward, causing it
to back up when the valves don’t close quickly
enough. That backward flow is considered to be
venous insufficiency. When the valves become
weakened or damaged, blood begins to collect
in those veins – causing the vein to become
enlarged and, in some instances, even painful or
leading to fatigue in the legs.
“The veins are a conduit, per say. They are a
Shutterstock piping to get blood back to your heart. It’s a very
low-pressure system. Blood is coming down from
our heart via our arteries and it’s basically under
pressure and goes around a capillary loop, and on
the way up it’s coming up via the veins,” says Dr.
ARE YOUR BIG, Laureti. “The problem is, it’s relying on that being
pushed up, and it’s fighting gravity. We were all born
with two leaflet valves that direct the flow of blood
BLUE VEINS back to our heart. In an ideal setting, the valves are
supposed to close and prevent the backward flow
of blood. Now, a combination of factors can lead to
RAISING A Here’s when the dysfunction of superficial valves.”
These factors, according to Dr. Laureti,
to treat them,
can include family history, obesity, multiple
RED FLAG? and how pregnancies, or a history of blood clots in the
deep venous system.
Venous deficiency is found in what is known
as the superficial veins – the vein that is above
EASTON HOSPITAL CARDIOLOGIST our muscle (the ‘deep’ veins are the ones found
below the muscle). Both are directing blood back
TREATS VARICOSE VEINS WITH to the heart, but in the deep veins, an issue like a

ENDOVENOUS OUTPATIENT PROCEDURES blood clot could eventually lead back to the heart.
In the superficial veins, this rarely, if ever, occurs.