Formerly “super morbidly obese” man (475+ lbs to 228lbs now) here, that through cycling has transitioned to a wanna be endurance athlete with roughly a 14% body fat (as measured on Withings scale).
I recently had an ultrasound on my legs and discovered I have some vericose veins and the doctor recommended I start wearing compression socks. The veins aren’t bad enough for him to recommend shots or surgery so that’s good, but I was wondering what others experiences with vericose veins had been?
Is it something I should be concerned about in terms of performance? I see there are cycling specific compression sleves, and some recommend them for riding, some for recovery. What’s the science behind this, is it something I should consider wearing during riding/training?
I’ve got some varicose veins in my legs, I’m 51 and have had them about 10 years. I had an ultrasound done on them last fall and they found no real issues. Doc said to just be concerned if they cause pain. I cant help feel at risk for a DVT even though the doc said being active really reduces the risk. I’ve heard of surgery to remove the veins and also them being flushed with saline via a syringe, what are the shots you are speaking of? I know that my legs don’t flush out lactic acid as good as they used to and I am sure that is caused by the varicose veins but my insurance will only cover procedures to remedy them if they are causing an actual medical problem, they view the surgery as purely cosmetic.
I’m not sure what the shots are. My understanding was it sort of closes the valves and keeps them closed. Someone I work with had had the vein surgery a couple of times and apparently it’s something that needs to be done more than once. That kind of sucks, but thankfully I’m not at thay point yet.
I’m only 33 and with a family history of vericose veins and with how fat I was I guess I’m just happy it’s not worse. My legs are ugly, but after losing a couple hundred pounds, pretty much everything is, oh well. Lol. I’m mainly just concerned with keeping things from getting worse. I figured someone else here might have gone through this too. I hear it’s pretty popular with masters riders.
Apparently you and I are the only TR users with varicose veins. My wife had some worked on years ago when we had different insurance that covered it. They basically flushed out the veins with saline solution which closes the valves…it was painful and she had to wear compression stockings for two weeks.
Wifey has them, it’s a real bummer for bike rides. Another side effect of having kids lol.
She uses compression socks on the regular…especially when atmospheric pressure goes down, she feels em. When it’s real bad she’ll put them on before bed to hopefully have a better day the next day