Why do Varicose Veins itch?

Dominic from Hastings asked “why do varicose veins itch?”

“Firstly, it’s not the varicose veins that are itching, it’s the skin and surrounding tissues, around the varicose veins, that are itching. The reason for the varicose veins is because there are no valves in the veins and all the valves have given way, so when you stand up blood falls out of the heart, down the legs and hits these veins.

Now if that only happened once or twice of course nothing much would happen. But when it’s happening day in day out, because you haven’t had the veins fixed, what ends up happening is that the constant battering of the blood hitting the inside of the vein or the varicose vein causes inflammation. And this has been shown in lots of research studies by blood tests and all sorts of clever techniques.

So what we know is that if you have constant inflammation the first thing you get quite often is itching. If that isn’t a sign to make you go and get your varicose veins fixed you could, of course, then deteriorate further to skin damage, red stains, brown stains and even ulceration. So really if you’re starting to feel itching around your varicose veins you should go and get it sorted out as soon as possible.”