What is Venous Insufficiency? Symptoms, Causes, Diagnosis, and More

Spider veins and varicose veins are the most visible symptoms of chronic venous insufficiency. Spider veins are dense clusters of blood vessels that appear on your skin’s surface, looking like a dense mass of spider webs underneath the skin. Varicose veins are dense blood vessels that bulge out of the skin’s surface, often looking like a thick mass of twisted, tangled, and knotted ropes. Varicose veins are indicative of advanced chronic venous insufficiency.

• Burst varicose veins: as blood continues accumulating in varicose veins, the walls of the vein weaken, increasing the risk of burst veins, which can lead to profuse bleeding.
• Skin discoloration: the skin on your legs will look pale and discolored because of ineffective blood circulation in the leg veins.
• Leg ulcers: without effective blood circulation in the legs, the wounds in your legs can’t heal properly, leading to non-healing wounds (ulcers).
• Deep vein thrombosis: you may eventually develop blood clots in your leg veins, which is one of the most dangerous complications of untreated chronic venous insufficiency.

• Genetic predisposition: you have an extremely high risk of chronic venous insufficiency if one or both of your parents have a history of vein problems.
• Biological sex: women are more likely to develop vein disease than men, and approximately 50% of all women suffer from spider veins and other vein problems.
• Pregnancy: the risk of vein disease significantly increases when you’re pregnant.
• Medical history: you have a higher risk of vein disease if you have a history of vein problems.
• Occupation: people with sedentary jobs that involve long periods of sitting or standing still have a higher risk of vein disease and spider veins.

Our vein doctors perform a duplex ultrasound to diagnose chronic venous insufficiency. Duplex ultrasound is a vascular imaging test that involves channeling ultrasound energy to visualize the direction of blood flow in leg veins and determine if you have chronic venous insufficiency. After diagnosing vein disease, the vein doctor may recommend one of the following minimally invasive procedures: radiofrequency ablation, laser ablation, venaseal, ambulatory phlebectomy, or sclerotherapy.

Yes. If you have varicose veins and chronic venous insufficiency, more blood will accumulate in your leg veins, which leads to increased blood pressure.

High blood pressure increases the risk of damaged vein valves, which, in turn, increases the risk of chronic venous insufficiency and varicose veins.

CVI, short for chronic venous insufficiency, is a medical condition wherein the collapse of vein valves leads to backward blood circulation and the accumulation of blood in leg veins, leading to a wide range of vascular problems, such as spider veins and varicose veins.

If your vein valves are collapsed, the vein doctor will perform radiofrequency ablation or laser ablation to destroy the diseased saphenous vein. Once the damaged vein is neutralized, the accumulated blood will reroute into healthier leg veins to restore optimal blood circulation to the heart. Since a diseased vein valve can’t be repaired, it must be removed or destroyed.