Varicose veins are thought to be ugly, and in a way, they are. But as a doctor, I am less concerned with beauty, more with health problems – and varicose veins are not always as harmless as they seem.
Thrombosis is a clot that blocks a vein, usually in one leg. Thrombosis may lead to pulmonary embolus and, in rare cases, to a stroke; both can be fatal. The symptoms are swelling and pain and warmth of the affected limb. Physicians order a Doppler scan, to make sure the patient does not have the feared clotting situation. If it is a clot, the patient will be admitted to a hospital and a severe thinning of the blood will be administered with heparin, Coumadin and other anti-coagulants, until the clot is gone or at least stabilized.
Often the Doppler test comes back negative – no clot, good news! The patient has “only” phlebitis, an inflammation of the wall of a vein. The symptoms are exactly the same: pain, swelling, warmth. In German phlebitis is generally called “cramping veins” because cramps are also a feature of phlebitis/thrombosis. What can you do against inflamed veins?
Phlebitis and thrombosis can have several causes, sometimes combined: A genetic disposition plays a role. Longtime immobility - like sitting on a long trans-Atlantic flight without getting up, or being bed-ridden, especially after surgery – is known to cause clots. Hormone therapy can lead to clotting. Less well known reasons are cancer and food sensitivities, or even just plain food that is not healthy.
Nutrition that is less than optimal is known to promote inflammation. That inflammation can show up as different diseases in the body; one is phlebitis/thrombosis. Junk foods with high sugar content, white starches, trans-fats and particularly dairy are highly inflammatory for everybody. Food sensitivities, on the other hand, specific for individuals, can also inflame, but the causative foods are sometimes hard to pinpoint. I have seen reactions to banana, avocado, nuts, beef (it might be more what the cattle ate than the cows themselves) and cherries – but there are endless possibilities; a food diary might help in recurrent cases.
Varicose veins frequently occur in people with unrecognized gluten intolerance. Slowly, over the years, the varicosities grow, which is often thought as being just another sign of aging. However, varicosities can be viewed as a sign of chronic inflammation of the body. Pregnancies and much standing can aggravate the condition.
What to do in phlebitis:
1. Eliminate all offending foods.
2. Move moderately every day. Don’t sit for prolonged times. Go for a walk every day.
3. Don’t sit with legs crossed – that clamps down of the veinous blood flow.
4. Elevate legs as often as possible.
5. High-dosed fish oil, three capsules three times a day. Fish oil is a mild blood thinner (and could be contra-advised in some conditions) and a strong anti-inflammatory agent.
6. Cold washings and gushes of the legs, cold sitzbaths and barefoot walking in the ocean all are beneficial.
7. In the acute situation, an icepack (not longer than 16 minutes at a time) might bring relief.
8. Wear support panty hose. It prevents the veins to bulge out bigger and bigger. On very hot days cut out the crotch of the panty hose. Wear the support hose also after you are better.
9. Don’t rush into surgery. Phlebitis is often not just a mechanical problem – think about the food connection first.
10. If symptoms get worse with fish oil therapy, you better return to your physician – soon! Read More
Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.
More About Vitamins
July 7, 2011
Glad that we are getting an interesting discussion going here … if only I didn’t have a day job – or several ...
We can agree on several things, namely
1. that food is not as good anymore than it was. We certainly have depleted soils in some agricultural areas. BUT the main problem with food today is not that we can’t get good food (we can, if we grow our own, and if we buy mostly organic); the problem is that, as a nation, we usually choose the wrong food. Hence the obesity epidemic, and heart disease, cancer, and so on. One could actually make a point that we can get much better food today than fifty years ago, or even twenty years ago.
Well, I wanted to agree with my ardent critic – but then thought the better of it. Let’s see the next point:
2. that vitamins are no substitute for food: totally agreed.
3. that we can get “better brands” of vitamins, and that they will be the real thing. Here I disagree. I wrote yesterday that the sudden overload in vitamins is detrimental for the body. And there have been several studies in the last few years that seem to corroborate this. In those studies (The Nurses’ Study is a famous example), they first look what people eat. They find that those who have the highest intake say, of vitamin A, judged by food diaries, have the least cancer. So far so good. In a follow-up study they give vitamin A (or no vitamin A) to people. And then the outcome is: More cancer in the vitamin arm than in the arm where people eat normal food. Now, such studies have been done for vitamin A, beta-carotene, vitamin E. It seems to prove that vitamins are not the same in food as in the bottle. Notwithstanding that they are chemically the same. The difference lies in the delivery system: To digest a vitamin, to use it in your metabolism, you need many more chemicals that are not present in the vitamin bottle, but come in whole foods. As my friend Annemarie Colbin once said: If you pop a vitamin A pill in the morning, your body is searching for the rest of the carrot the whole day ….
Honey? I have never recommended honey much – you are right that it is mostly sugar, and fructose at that. Therefore one should use it only sparingly. Apart from that most of our honeys have been heated and made worthless.
And Linus Pauling? Great scientist. But I can’t follow him into his vitamin fixation. Some people are convinced that vitamins will save their lives. Some are not – it probably is not useful to discuss it forever. Why some arguments seem true to us, and others not, is highly individual. For me, one man who made it to 93 is no proof that he did everything right regarding nutrition. Without his mega-doses of vitamin C, perhaps he would have made it to 107??
Nothing will get me away from good, whole, fresh foods! Read More
Nobody Wants To Talk About Poop
October 23, 2010
When we come back from traveling, our cat’s litter box usually is a mess.
Sorry, I bring up this stinky subject – but it has relevance not only for cats and pets, but also for humans.
Of course, bodily waste products don’t smell like roses. But they also should not smell THAT disgustingly. If they do – in pets and people – chances are something is wrong with the digestive tract.
Now the hardest part is to compare your bowel movements with everybody else’s because we usually are discrete about our defecation results. We don’t know how other people smell or look … in the toilet bowl.
Feces definitely should not reek that it turns one’s stomach. The smell should make you want to flush the toilet – not to run away. And stool should not float, nor should it be excessively sticky, large, or gray-colored.
So, what had happens with our tomcat Otto when we travel? A kind neighbor comes over to feed him. To make it not too complicated for her, we switch to commercial – mostly dry – food. Commercial food contains all kinds of substances unhealthy for a cat, especially wheat and corn products. Predictably, every time our Otto gets extremely stinky on that kind of nutrition.
It takes only a few days and my self-cooked meals that his litter box s ias unobtrusive again as it usually is: His intestines heal, obviously.
What constitutes a healthy bowel? Once a day, at least, one should have a bowel movement. If you don’t have one every day, don’t reach for the laxative. Look instead into what you are eating. Do you eat enough vegetables? Leave out sugar, trans-fats and dairy. And don’t eat what your body tells you hurts it: Stomach pain, heartburn, bloating, cramps, diarrhea, constipation, sores in your mouth – they are not cause for embarrassment but they all are signs that something is wrong with your digestion.
SAD – the Standard American Diet – is not healthy for people’s bowels. And commercial pet food – even the so-called “natural” and “scientific” - are not healthy for your pets’.
P.S. Taking a probiotic does not make up for a lousy diet, but helps reestablishing bowel health. Read More