Poor circulation? Blood getting trapped around ankles?

“We’ve had a question from Jake sent into the ‘your questions’ site of the Whiteley clinic website asking about his circulation and the feeling that blood is getting trapped from running round his ankles at night. This happens after he has gone to bed and when he’s settled down and trying to get to sleep he feels like the blood is getting trapped or has some feeling inside his ankles.

Well the first thing to say Jake is this isn’t a worry because it isn’t your blood getting trapped. If you are standing up with varicose veins the blood then finds it very hard to get back to the heart without movement and so that’s why we have all the problems for varicose veins, however, when you’re lying down venous blood flows easily back to the heart unless you’ve got a major problem. So whatever it is you’re feeling it is unlikely to be veins although one thing must be said, a bit like when you wear a rough shirt and you’ve got used to it and then when you take if off you suddenly feel things are a lot better, the same thing can happen if you’ve got venous reflux or hidden varicose veins.

If you spend the whole day on your feet or with your feet down and your legs have become swollen and your veins have become swollen, when you put them up, sometimes if you’ve got used to that feeling you actually get a strange feeling of relief and that can be misinterpreted”