Myths About Varicose Veins - "Standing for long periods of time causes Varicose Veins"
The cause of varicose veins and the other vein conditions of venous ezcema, thrombophelbitis (phlebitis), brown staining of the skin, bleeding varicose veins and venous leg ulcers, is the failure of the leg pump. In leg pump failure, the blood goes down the arteries from the heart into the leg, but the veins cannot pump the blood back out of the leg.
This failure of the leg pump is usually due to the valves failing (see "How Veins Work" later in the Veins Web Site - there are pictures and animations explaining exactly how the leg pump should work - and how it can fail causing varicose veins and the other venous conditions).
Research performed by Mark Whiteley in the 1990s showed that many valves fail in the teenage years. In work that he presented around the world, but has not published yet, he showed:
- by age 9, one in 20 girls had already lost valves in their veins
- by age 18, one in 9 girls had lost valves in their veins
However, despite the fact they had lost the valves and the vein pump wasn't working properly in the legs, it had not had time to cause the damage to show varicose veins or other venous conditions.
Thus, when people take jobs that cause them to stand for long periods of time, the long periods of standing do not cause the varicose veins - they just allow them to form quicker in people who already have lost their valves when they were younger.
Therefore, although a lot of people blame their job for their varicose veins - such as teachers, nurses, factory workers, hair-dressers etc - their job did not CAUSE the varicose veins. The cause was the valve failure which is a familial problem. The long periods of standing just allow the damage caused by the valve failure to happen quicker - so these professions get worse varicose veins and vein conditions quicker and more severely.
