- Varicose veins affect 40 per cent of women and a quarter of menÂ
- Appeared on Eve while in her teens and they got worse during pregnancies
- Dressed in ankle-length unless legs were covered in black opaque tights
- Dreaded baring my legs on the beach or staying covered up abroad
- Had keyhole surgery using lasers and radiowaves to destroy damaged veins
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It’s
a small but significant step for me. This summer, I will be proudly
unveiling my legs in skirts, shorts and dresses for the first time in
what feels like for ever.
Having spent years hiding them under
trousers and floor-skimming maxi dresses due to horrible lumpy varicose
veins that made my calves resemble a fine stilton, I am finally
liberated. And it’s all thanks to cutting-edge keyhole surgery.
Troublesome
veins started appearing when I was in my late teens. Fast-forward to my
30s and they had become so disfiguring that I could wear nothing less
than ankle-length unless my legs were shrouded in black opaque tights.
Eve spent years hiding her legs under trousers and floor-skimming maxi dresses
Varicose
veins occur when the wall of a blood vessel starts to weaken, making it
swell out of shape. Four in ten people suffer from this condition, with
40 per cent of women and a quarter of men afflicted.
The veins in
the legs push blood up to the heart, and because the flow goes against
gravity there is a series of one-way valves to help them do so.
As blood
passes through, the valves close, stopping gravity from pulling it back
down again. When the vein walls fail, blood starts to pool, known as
venous reflux, causing the bulging veins.
A tiny but unsightly vein
first appeared on my left calf while IÂ was at university. I was
surprised because I kept fit, but as consultant vascular surgeon John
Scurr, who treated me, points out: ‘Varicose veins are often inherited,
irrespective of lifestyle.’
The first vein didn’t bother me too much
as it was on the inside of my leg and was hidden in shadow from most
angles.
However, when I became pregnant with my first child in 2009,
more veins appeared further up my leg on the thigh, and on my right leg
too. My GP suggested support stockings. They were hot, uncomfortable,
virtually impossible to pull on and really unattractive when I did
manage it. I was told I’d never get any more treatment than that on the
NHS, and the GP didn’t even bother to examine my legs.
Eve’s legs felt heavy and swollen before the operation (l) but now she couldn’t be happier with the results (r)
In fact,
Government guidance now doesn’t even suggest stockings unless every
other option has been exhausted. The National Institute for Health and
Care Excellence (NICE) recommends a variety of surgical treatments, but
they are authorised in only a minority of cases: 35,000Â of these
procedures were carried out in 2010, the most recent year for which
records are available.
My situation became unbearable when I was
pregnant with my second child in 2012. As the pregnancy progressed, the
existing veins became even more prominent, and more seemed to be
appearing every time I looked in the mirror.
My legs felt heavy and
swollen, and by the end of the day they were throbbing so much I could
feel the blood struggling to pump through. I hoped the situation would
improve once I’d given birth. No such luck.
I realised something had
to be done as we were making plans for our annual summer holiday.
Dreading baring my legs on the beach or the prospect of having to stay
covered up in the Mediterranean heat, I visited Mr Scurr’s clinic in
desperation. His response on first sight was: ‘Wow! I can’t believe you
haven’t come to me sooner.’
I didn’t feel there was any point in
getting the veins sorted until I’d completed my family. But according to
Mr Scurr, I could have made the situation worse by waiting. ‘The
earlier you get varicose veins treated, the better the cosmetic result.
It’s not a condition that’s going to heal itself – it only gets worse
with time.’
Privately, prices for a consultation, including scans,
average about £500, and the cost of treatment itself ranges from £2,500
to £5,000. But under the new NICE guidance, anyone suffering discomfort
from varicose veins should be referred to a specialist.
The
emphasis is now very much on endothermal ablation – this is where lasers
and radiowaves use heat to destroy the damaged veins from the inside.
Foam sclerotherapy, where the vein is injected with a special foam that
dissolves the vein lining and seals them shut, is also sometimes
offered.
But because my veins were so large, I needed surgery. This
process involves removing the veins whole through two small keyhole-type
incisions in the groin crease at the top of each leg.
Although in
the past one in three surgical patients reported that their veins
returned in ten years, Mr Scurr believes this refers to the old
traditional ‘stripping’ method. Surgeons also often failed to scan legs
accurately before the operation to remove them.
‘The surgical method
has really changed and improved over the past 20 years,’ he says. ‘It
used to be very invasive and painful with a slow recovery, but veins are
no longer stripped out with a mushroom-sized device. We now use a very
fine wire that turns the vein inside out and pulls it out through
itself.
‘Radiowave treatment is seriously oversold and has a 40 to 60
per cent recurrence rate in five years compared with less than ten per
cent with surgical treatments.’
An ultrasound scan of my legs (much
the same as used during pregnancy) was able to pinpoint exactly which
veins were problematic. During the hour-long operation, Mr Scurr made a
small incision at the top of each leg, and a wire was threaded through
this gap to separate the deep veins from the superficial ones.
He
removed several big veins from my left leg, including that unsightly one
in my calf that had been brewing since my teenage years, and more in my
right leg. Other smaller veins were taken out through pinprick
incisions in each calf.
When I came round, my legs were swathed in
bandages but there was no pain. I was able to walk out of the clinic
with the help of my husband that same evening. I sat with my legs draped
across the back seat of the car for the journey home, and it’s
important to keep the legs as elevated as possible in the initial weeks
after surgery to minimise bruising.
When I removed the bandages that
evening, the yellow, blue and black bruises looked pretty horrific. I
had to wear compression stockings day and night for two or three days,
and during the day for a further three days. I religiously applied
arnica to the bruises every evening and amazingly they had all but
disappeared for our beach holiday just three weeks later.
Now, nearly
a year later, I couldn’t be happier with the results. I’m never going
to have supermodel legs. But for me, this is the best they’re going to
get.
jscurr.com
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