What Is Chronic Venous Insufficiency and What Does It Have to Do With Foot Wounds?

The road to slow-healing foot, ankle, or leg wounds is commonly linked to diabetes, but this chronic condition isn’t the only culprit.

In this month’s blog post, leading wound specialist Dr. Thomas Rambacher and our team at Foot Ankle Leg Wound Care Orange County want to highlight another condition that counts slow-healing lower limb wounds among its complications: chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), which affects more than 25 million adults in the United States.

Given that CVI numbers are on the rise, we thought it would be a good idea to provide more detail on how this disease can lead to troublesome wounds in your lower legs.

Chronic venous insufficiency basics

A great place to start is with a brief description of what happens in your lower legs when you have CVI.

To circulate blood out of your legs and back up to your heart, your cardiovascular system needs to work a little harder because it’s fighting gravity and distance. To help, the veins in your legs are equipped with tiny, one-way valves that close as blood passes through. This action stops blood from pooling in your legs and, instead, keeps it flowing upward.

With CVI, these valves weaken and they don't close all the way, which allows blood to pool. One of the first signs of CVI are varicose veins, which affect 40 million Americans. These veins are a direct result of CVI as the pressure inside the superficial vein causes it to engorge and rise to the surface.

The good news is that varicose veins are mostly a cosmetic concern. The bad news is that, as CVI advances, complications can get worse and include leg ulcers.

CVI and leg ulcers

CVI is a progressive condition, so symptoms and complications can get worse over time. One complication that is of great concern is venous stasis ulcers, which affect up to 3% of the older population in the US.

This complication develops gradually and usually starts with edema, or leg swelling. This occurs when the pressure inside your veins forces fluids out into neighboring tissues, which is why people with advanced CVI often develop puffy lower legs.

Playing this out further, the ongoing pressure of the edema can weaken your skin and lead to ulcers, which look like open sores. These ulcers typically develop around your ankles.

The same pressure that leads to the open sore also prevents healing resources from accessing the wound, which is why venous ulcers can be slow to heal. And when a wound doesn’t heal in a timely manner, the threat of infection increases exponentially.

Next steps when you have CVI

If we’re to leave you with any takeaways from our discussion, it’s twofold:

If you have CVI, it’s important to elevate your legs, get good exercise, and wear compression socks, all of which help circulate blood back out of your legs.
If you develop a sore and you have CVI, please come see us straight away so we can get the healing on the right track from the start.

If you have more questions about CVI and venous leg ulcers or you suspect that one might be brewing, please don’t hesitate to come see us. To set that in motion, you can call our office in Mission Viejo, California, at 949-832-6018 or request an appointment online today.