Varicose Veins

[tyaca]

18 weeks with first, and feeling fine save for legs v v bad. can only wear flip flops as anything else give me panic-y leg and foot claustrophobia.

always had bad-ish veins in legs (am 30) but now my calves look like that bit from Alien where thing comes out of Sigourney Weaver's stomach.

know its only going to get worse. heard horse chesnut good, but read i can't take it when pregnant, so wondering about topical creams?? there must be something?? and please not just stockings which i know i'll be using soon enough (oh my god this is the end of sexy and end of glam) -- do they just help them getting worse, or do they help with pain?

plus has anyone had surgery and what's it like and how much is it privatley and how soon after birth can i do it?

so many questions.... x

can you not get laser treatment for it? or am i thinking of broken veins?

My mw said there's nothing you can do except the stockings, I'm afraid But it should get a lot better after the birth so you might well not need to go down the surgery route...

tyaca, i had terrible vv's in pregnancy (also had them since i was a teenager but loads worse in pregnancy) i also had them in another place which was just horrible. Anyway, they went down alot after the birth (in Feb this year) and in May I had surgery to have them removed and have just had some thread veins injected too. I feel heaps better (confident) and have started wearing skirts for the first time ever. The only thing i would say is probably not best to have any treatments until you have finished having babies (doctor advised me) and the veins were far worse in my second pregnancy than with first. The treatment would have cost about £2000 but luckily we have Bupa through my dh's job. Stockings are the only thing you can do in pregnancy I think. They are really ugly and difficult to put on but I had to wear mine otherwise it was too painful. It will get better after the birth though, best wishes with the pregnancy