The heart pumps the blood to all body parts through arteries, so arteries bring blood from the heart to the extremities and the Veins are blood vessels that returns blood from your body’s tissues (like extremities) towards your heart. Veins contain one way valves that allows the blood to flow in upwards direction only by the movement of limb muscles, so that the blood can easily returned back to the heart.

When there is obstruction of veins due to any reason, or when prolonged distension of the veins due to blood stasis, the valves stretch and no longer effective. This allows blood to travel back down the veins towards the feet. The veins in the legs that are near to the surface of the skin enlarges & become tortuous and result in what is commonly called varicose veins. These can range from minor dilatations to large bunch of grape-like structures in the calf. Varicose veins literally mean grossly dilated, tortuous knotted veins. It can occur at different places in the body but lower limb (especially the calf & thigh) is most affected. Varicose veins are not usually a serious health problem, but they can be painful and you may be bothered by the way they look. Varicose veins is a slowly progressive disease which if left untreated can lead to marked skin change damage or ulceration near the ankle. In the early phases treatment is given for cosmetic reasons, but later it becomes very distressing by discoloration, edema of legs, Eczema, recurrent ulcerations around the foot and ankle joints. Finally it produces painful non healing ulcers in the foot and ankle region.

Sometimes there are smaller thin veins are noticed in your extremities or any other parts of body, this condition is known as Spider Veins. This may require treatment for aesthetic reason.