(HealthDayNews) -- Varicose veins, those unsightly red lines that streak across your legs, are often inherited. So if your mother had them, there's a good chance you will, too.
According to Health Canada, there are some things you can do to keep them in check:
- Avoid standing still for long periods. If you have no choice, keep the blood circulating by flexing your calf muscles, rising up and down on your toes and squeezing your feet together in your shoes.
- Avoid wearing knee-high nylons or socks on a daily basis. They can block the movement of blood up the leg.
- Wear support hose. These stockings apply a gentle, graduated pressure to the leg from the foot upward, which helps decrease expansion of the vein wall.
- Avoid wearing high-heeled shoes every day.
- Exercise with care. A well-toned leg muscle will pump out more blood than a weak muscle as you walk or move. But be careful with strenuous exercise. Abdominal pressure can block the flow of blood back to the heart. So when you lift heavy weights, for instance, make sure you blow out. Otherwise you increase abdominal pressure and your veins have to expand to get around this block.
