14 Tips to Improve Varicose Veins Naturally + The Best Essential Oils for Varicose Veins

14 Tips to Improve Varicose Veins Naturally (Including Essential Oils)

Varicose veins, and their milder cousin’s spider veins, are enlarged, bulging, blue or purple veins usually in your legs and feet. When they are at their worst, they are painful, otherwise they are mostly an annoying cosmetic concern.

Many people suffer from varicose veins. Being overweight, carrying heavy loads, feet injuries, pregnancies, and medications that contain estrogen can aggravate the problem. However there are ways to alleviated or prevent this problem from getting worse.

Varicose Veins – Causes

Veins are the blood vessels that carry blood from your limbs towards your heart. Those in your legs must transport this blood against gravity, upwards to your chest. But varicose veins result when:

– Your veins are not elastic enough, so they cannot snap back to their normal size following periods of heavy blood flow, for example, during exercise.

– The valves in your veins are weakened, so they cannot prevent blood from flowing back towards your feet with gravity. This causes it to pool in your lower legs and feet.

Dilated veins in the legs may be due to a problem of the venous valves, whose role is to ensure the blood flows only in one direction – toward the heart and the legs. When these valves don’t function properly, blood flows to the legs, puts excess pressure on the walls of the veins causing them to expand, swell and protrude through the skin.

This phenomenon of varicose veins is called “venous insufficiency” – a medical problem that requires investigation and treatment. This is one of the common diseases in the world: one in two women and one in four men will suffer during their lifetime from varicose veins and venous insufficiency.

– Your blood circulation is generally sluggish, or become sluggish because you stand or sit for too long without moving. There are 14 warning signs that you have poor blood circulation.

– You are overweight or pregnant, which increases the amount of blood in your body.

– Female hormonal imbalances such as during pregnancy, menopause, or while taking a contraceptive pill – all relax vein walls and reduces their elasticity.

– It was also found that varicose veins are particularly prevalent among people with professions that require prolonged standing, including surgeons, hair dressers, cashiers and sales people. Genetic weakness of the vein walls and valves, and excessive pressure in the veins are also among the causes for varicose veins.

Dilated veins can cause swelling, edema, heaviness and pain in the feet, bleeding and infection, and sometimes even deep wounds and venous leg ulcers. In addition, patients may develop leg cramps, redness, skin color changes around the ankles, skin thickening and hardening of the legs and ankles, and joint pain. More severe cases may develop inflammation of a vein.

Despite the prevalence of the disease, and the risks which it entails, only 10% of those with varicose veins treat the problem. While it is very hard to completely prevent the appearance of varicose veins, it is possible to delay and prevent it from getting worse.

How to Delay the Appearance of Varicose Veins?

1. Avoid standing or sitting for long periods without movement. If you need to stand for a long time, you should move your legs from time to time to improve blood circulation.

2. Avoid strenuous physical activity which applies heavy pressure on the veins, such as weight training.

3. Exercise moderately such as walking or swimming. These activities may strengthen the walls of the blood vessels and prevent or delay the development of prominent veins. When you walk, make sure you do a full motion from heel to toe. This movement stimulates the blood flow to the heart.

4. Avoid hot tubs, prolonged sauna, long stay in the sun and hot wax hair removal. The heat involved in these activities expands the capillaries and aggravates varicose veins.

5. Make a cold or lukewarm showers. It shrinks the veins.

6. It is recommended to sit or lie down with your legs raised slightly. This position will improve the blood flow from the legs to the heart. When sitting, rest your feet on a chair or stool. When lying down, place a pillow under your feet, and make sure they are slightly upward.

7. Avoid sitting cross-legged. This will increase pressure on the leg veins.

8. Apply elastic stockings or elastic bandages. These socks will not eliminate prominent veins, but they may prevent them from getting worse.

9. Be sure to wear comfortable shoes and avoid wearing high heels. Walking in high heels could exacerbate the problem of varicose veins if it already exists.

10. Maintain a healthy body weight. Being overweight puts unnecessary pressure on your veins.

11. Try to avoid being constipated frequently as it increases the pressure on the legs. If you suffer from constipation, try these home remedies for constipation.

12. During long haul flights (and only after consulting and obtaining a prescription from your physician) take blood thinners such as aspirin to prevent blood clots and venous thrombosis. Also avoid prolonged sitting and make sure you move to prevent edema and reduce venous pressure in the legs. In addition, during long-haul flights make sure to wear elastic socks.

13. Take nutritional supplements (after consulting with your doctor). B vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E and zinc help to maintain the elasticity of blood vessels and strengthen their walls and can prevent or delay the appearance of varicose veins.

14. Consume herbs for improving blood flow as bilberry and butcher’s broom. If you are interested in herbal remedies, you can find useful information in my e-book the Herbal Remedies Guide which will teach you how to treat common ailments using herbs.

15 Use compression stockings. A medical study found that people who used knee-high compression stockings reported a reduction in the pain and aching associated with varicose veins.

How to Get Rid of Spider Veins

Spider veins are similar to varicose veins, but smaller. These tiny veins, found close to the surface of the skin, resemble spider webs or branches of a tree and are usually red, purple or blue.

Most often, spider veins are found on the legs (thighs, back of the calves, insides of the legs, ankles). This is due to the high pressures veins in the lower extremities have to endure – just think about the force of gravity, the pressure of body weight, and needing to carry blood all the way up to the heart!

If you suffer from spider veins, read my other article: The Best Home Remedies to Get Rid of Spider Veins

If you suffer from broken capillaries on your face, read my article on how to treat and prevent broken blood vessels on face.

Essential Oils to Improve Varicose Veins

Essential oils work well to prevent varicose veins altogether and to stop them from getting worse when they are still small.

These are the contributory factors that essential oils will have to tackle. Oils are not a miracle cure for large varicose veins. Medical treatments focus on closing those veins while oils must try to promote blood flow and vein health.

Still, oils work well to prevent varicose veins altogether, to stop them from getting worse when they are still small, and to improve blood flow and vein health enough to tighten and improve the appearance of small to medium-size ones.

Here are the best essential oils for varicose veins:

Clary Sage is a favorite to improve blood flow. In one study, researchers used it successfully to reduce menstruation cramps caused by strangled blood flow, blended with marjoram, cinnamon, ginger, and geranium.1

Rose Oil also improves blood flow, and has also tested to be effective to improve blood flow in menstruating college girls, especially when mixed with lavender and clary sage.2

Cypress Oil is used to shrink swollen blood vessels, improve blood circulation (it is one of the 11 remedies for improving blood circulation), combat fluid retention, and as a mild pain reliever. This makes it ideal for varicose veins, as it may shrink the veins, improve the blood flow, and prevent blood pooling.

Geranium Oil helps blood vessels contract, which is useful for bulging varicose veins.

Ginger Oil can improve blood flow so well that it can even be used to lower blood pressure.3 You can also consume ginger root as it improves your circulation by lowering blood pressure and thinning the blood. It also one of the natural remedies for improving spider veins.

Frankincense Oil can also lower blood pressure by improving blood circulation, and it is believed to balance estrogen production.

Basil Oil improves blood circulation and serves as an analgesic for painful varicose veins.

Calamus Oil improves blood circulation, especially if it is inhaled.

Cassia Bark Oil improves blood circulation and tightens blood vessels.4

Cinnamon and Cedarwood Oils are on many aromatherapists’ favorites list for contracting blood vessels and promoting blood circulation.

Yarrow Oil is popular to increase blood flow, contract blood vessels, and attack inflammation in the circulatory system that can cause swelling of blood vessels.

Lemongrass Oil contracts blood vessels and can relieve the pain of painful varicose veins.

Cold Compress for Varicose Veins

Cold compress may provide temporary relief from pain and burning. So you could try doing the following:

Pour one liter of cold water into a bowl and add five drops of cypress oil (it’s best to dilute the essential oil first in a tablespoon of carrier oil of your choice).

Make a cold pad and apply it to the area of your varicose veins. Sit with your legs elevated while you do this for several minutes every evening. You can do it in front of the television if you like.

Essential Oils Foot Bath for Varicose Veins

If your varicose veins are on your feet and ankles, do something similar to the cold compress as follows:

Pour five liters of cold water into a bucket and add 20 drops of cypress oil (it’s best to dilute the essential oil first in a tablespoon or two of carrier oil of your choice).

Sit with your feet in the cold water for several minutes. If the veins are painful, use 15 drops of cypress and five drops of basil oil.

A Varicose Vein Massage Blend

Mix the following:

  • 3 tablespoons of sweet almond oil or other base oil
  • 10 drops of cypress oil
  • 10 drops of frankincense oil
  • 10 drops of clary sage oil

Mix them and store them in a clean glass bottle. Massage the affected area with this blend twice a day. Massage on both sides of the veins, rather than across them. You can either use your hands, or a body brush. Massage towards your heart, because that is where you want the blood to go. Start all the way at your feet and massage upwards.

Food-Grade Oils for Varicose Veins

If you can find food-grade ginger and cinnamon oils, you can make some tea and add the oils to it. One drop per two mugs should be sufficient. They are also good in fruit smoothies. Alternatively, make ginger tea or cinnamon tea and add the appropriate oil.

Time is a Great Healer

Be patient and apply your chosen treatment consistently. After a few weeks, you will see the veins starting to shrink as the pooled blood flows more rapidly upwards and the veins start to contract.

If you are interested to learn more about essential oils you can find useful information in my e-book Magical Aromatherapy. This e-book will help you to discover the power of essential oils and the most effective ways to use them.

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