Varicose and spider veins are a serious subject. But let’s take a break. Here are some interesting facts about vein disease, vein treatments, varicose and spider veins. Enjoy it.

Animals and Varicose Veins
Do Giraffes get varicose veins?
NASA scientists have studied giraffes extensively in an effort to design the ideal gravity suit for astronauts. The determining factor for the pressure in leg veins is the vertical distance between the heart and the legs, which makes the giraffe’s leg vein pressures by far the highest in the animal kingdom. The giraffe, therefore, should be a slam-dunk candidate for varicose veins and swollen legs. It turns out, however, that the skin in the giraffe’s leg is extremely tough and fibrous, and, contrary to other animals (notably humans), the arteries and veins are concentrated exclusively in the center of the leg. It’s as if giraffes wear permanent support stockings.

Here’s More about animals and varicose veins
There are many other reasons why some people develop vein problems and others don’t. Did you know animals don’t develop varicose veins? Most animals stand on four legs. The amount of pressure on their leg veins is much less. There is a shorter distance between their legs and their heart. Hence, in one way they are more fortunate then us because they have minimal vein problems.

Vacular Disease and Varicose Veins
Vein problems are the stepchild of vascular disease. Arteries get all the attention – after all, our brain, heart, kidneys, and all other organs depend on a continuous flow of fresh oxygen. Veins somehow don’t seem as important (unless, of course, you have the problem). Veins are actually more complicated than arteries because they are more difficult to understand and definitely more difficult to operate on. And that challenge may be why I am continually fascinated with them. The following very limited selection of vein trivia and oddities may be of some interest.

In 86 BC, Caius Marius, a Roman general and later tyrant, had the first recorded operation for varicose veins.

Here’s how Plutarch, the great biographer of Greek and Roman times, describes the event:
Marius is praised for both temperance and endurance, of which latter he gave a decided instance in an operation of surgery. For having as it seems, both his legs full of great tumors, and disliking the deformity, he decided to put himself into the hands of an operator. When, without being tied, he stretched one of his legs, and silently, without changing countenance, endured most excessive torments in the cutting, never either flinching or complaining; but when the surgeon went to the other, he declined to have it done, saying “I see the cure is not worth the pain.”
Wise Marius! With today’s local anesthesia techniques, even the largest varicose veins can be removed without the need for general anesthesia or even intravenous sedation. All procedures at Triangle Surgery Center are done as an outpatient, with patients returning to full activities in short order. Even Caius Marius could have returned to his legion posthaste.

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