Up to 40 per cent of adults in the UK will develop varicose veins at some point in their lives. Ola Majewska, 42, put up with aching, heavy legs and hiding her veins for years but her life has been transformed since having pioneering varicose vein treatment.
Varicose veins are a common problem, with up to 40 per cent of adults developing them in their lifetime – and this figure rises to more than 60 per cent for people aged 75 and over. Typically seen on the legs, they are caused by faulty valves within the veins that allow blood to pool, and can result in knobbly, bulging, twisted veins that have a dark blue or purple appearance.
“We don’t fully understand why people get varicose veins, but we know they’re associated with a strong family history – it’s a myth that being overweight, pregnancy or standing for too long causes them,” says professor Mark Whiteley, a venous surgeon and founder of the Whiteley Clinic.
Research suggests you get five genes from each of your parents that are linked with how well the valves in your veins work. “The idea is that if you have five or more ‘bad’ genes you’ll see varicose veins quite badly – when all 10 are bad, that’s when people get them aged 12,” he explains. “So if one parent has varicose veins you’re likely to get them, and you’re even more likely to if they both do.”
Ola Majewska, 42, a shop manager who lives with her partner in a small village in Hampshire, started noticing varicose veins between her knee and foot, and on the outer side of her thigh on her left leg, when she was in her twenties. “Sometimes after a long day on my feet, bulging veins would appear, but it became much worse in my thirties,” she explains.
“At that point, I started to hide my leg and became super aware of it – I chose not to wear short skirts or dresses, and it really affected my self-confidence,” she says. “I always had a big, bulging vein at the front of my leg which made me always want to hide it, even from my partner.”
In the last five years, her varicose veins deteriorated further. “My leg would become really tight and painful by the end of the day. It felt so heavy, sore and uncomfortable that it stopped me exercising after work – previously I enjoyed going to the gym, walking and running, but I could only do those activities first thing in the morning on the weekends when my leg was at its best”.
“Even driving home after work was challenging because pressing on the clutch with my left leg was uncomfortable. It would affect my choices after work – for example, instead of having a longer drive to go food shopping, I just wanted to get home as soon as possible. Then I’d spend my evenings lying in bed with my leg throbbing.”
Ola’s mother and grandfather also had the condition. “I always remember them having a traumatic experience with their varicose veins,” she says. ‘They both struggled a lot and had a lot of barbaric procedures when their veins would be stripped [surgically removed], which involved many weeks of recovery, but the varicose veins always came back. My mum is now in her late sixties and she still has poorly legs, and my grandfather suffered until the end of his life”.
“There isn’t anything you can do to prevent getting varicose veins, but exercising stops them deteriorating as quickly,” says Whiteley, who wrote Why Varicose Veins Come Back – and How To Stop Them. When varicose veins get worse, they can lead to an array of complications including swollen ankles, leg ulcers and blood clots, and they have even been linked to dementia, heart failure and stroke.
“Varicose veins cause inflammation which blocks the capillaries [small blood vessels] and means one or both of the ends of your legs has a massive area of inflammatory tissue,” he says. “In the last five years, researchers have started looking into the issues associated with this inflammation – much like inflammation in the gut – and found that varicose veins are associated with an increased risk of heart failure, ischemic stroke, and vascular dementia. They are not only a cosmetic issue and need to be taken seriously.
“One issue is that only up to 20 per cent of people have the lumpy veins you see on the surface but many more (up to 40 per cent) have hidden varicose veins that you can’t see, so you don’t know you’ve got them before they start causing problems,” Prof Whiteley says. “The best thing you can do is to get them treated before they have a knock-on effect on the other veins in your legs”.
In 2024, Ola decided to take action and researched treatments. “It felt daunting because I thought I’d be living from operation to operation like my mum and grandfather, while I wanted something which would be more future proof.”
Ola started her treatment at the Whiteley Clinic in August last year, following an ultrasound scan of her legs, which checks all 155 veins in the legs that can cause varicose veins, explains Whiteley. The first stage involved endovenous laser ablation (a minimally-invasive procedure which uses laser to destroy the veins) and phlebectomy, a process that removes bulging veins on the surface – both under a local anaesthetic.
In February, she had the final part of treatment, foam sclerotherapy, which eliminates the affected veins inside the leg and stops them growing back. “It’s important to do this procedure under ultrasound control, so you can see you’re in the right vein and not outside it,” says Whiteley. “Afterwards you put a stocking around the leg for 21 days, which holds the vein closed and stops blood getting into it.” He adds that foam sclerotherapy only works in veins with very thin walls, rather than in big, lumpy ones.
“If varicose veins are scanned properly and then treated in the best way, then it’s rare for them to come back – it’s a myth that they will always return,” he adds.
“Other than a few bruises and some soreness, my leg healed quickly and I hardly took any time off work,” Ola says. “I had to wear a stocking for three weeks after the second treatment, which was followed by an ultrasound scan to check that all the affected veins had been treated, and it had all gone as planned.
“After the first treatment, I could see a huge improvement in my leg, as the bulging veins had gone. It felt amazing to see my leg looking so good. Now I want to show my legs off and I’m exercising regularly to make them look as lovely as I can, although I’m taking it easy while I’m still in the healing process. Now I feel I can wear shorts or a shorter dress without worrying, and the soreness and tightness has gone completely.
“I’m really happy, and I only wish that my mum and grandfather could have had these options available to them as it would have made a big difference to their lives.”
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