While many women do not experience the discomfort of varicose veins, others may notice throbbing or burning. This is particularly true for women who stand for long periods.

Causes:
During pregnancy, increased blood volume puts pressure on the veins. At the same time, pregnancy hormones relax the walls of blood vessels. Thus, to pump more blood, the veins have problems returning blood to the lower body and then back to the heart.
As a result, varicose veins can develop in the legs, buttocks (as piles or haemorrhoids) and even in the area around the opening of the vagina. The veins worsen at the end of pregnancy when the baby grows. The bigger the baby gets, there is more pressure on the pelvic veins and the large blood vessels that carry blood back to the heart from the legs and abdomen.

Varicose veins can appear blue or purple as they swell with extra blood circulating in the body. They may also appear as “knots” or bumpy. For some women, varicose veins are painless and it gets uncomfortable only when the pregnancy progresses. Others can feel a throbbing pain.

Varicose veins can cause many problems if:
• you are already overweight when you become pregnant,
• the baby is too big,
• you are expecting more than one baby.
They tend to run in families and it gets worsen with each pregnancy.

Treatment:
- Homeopathy
Ideally see a registered and qualified homeopath, and that homeopathic remedies are best prescribed according to precise symptoms.
A homeopathic remedy that can help to treat varicose veins is pulsatilla. Put one or two tablets of 30c strength, under the tongue three times a day. If after five days, there is no change in symptoms, stop taking the tablets and seek professional advice from a qualified and registered homeopath. Other homeopathic remedies that may work include Hammamelis dye, applied to the legs at night, or arnica tablets if your veins are paining and damaged.

- Aromatherapy
To ease the pain of varicose veins, mix four drops of cypress or geranium oil in 5 ml (one teaspoon) of grape seed oil base, and add this in your bath water. On the other hand make a compress by adding the essential oil mixture to hot water or cold, and soaking a cloth such as a kitchen towel in it. Drain and then wrap the fabric around their legs, varicose veins.

- Herbal remedies
Aloe vera gel applied on the legs can be helpful for varicose veins. Apply the gel and then lie with your legs slightly elevated above the hips.

- Reflexology
Reflexology on feet or hands is an effective body treatment. It is helpful in blood circulation and prevents the direct massaging of the affected areas. It helps to improve the edema (swelling) associated with varicose veins.

- Other tips
Take plenty of rest with legs elevated above the hips. A home remedy is to soak a cloth in apple cider vinegar and apply on the legs, twice a day.

HOMEOPATHY

- This system believes that the body can heal itself.
- Homeopathy is a lengthy process.
- Treatment is based on factors like body type, genetic and personal health history, physical and emotional and mental health.
- It works on the principle of similars or “like cures like”. This is a belief that a disease can be cured by treatment with a substance that produces similar symptoms in healthy people.
- The principles of dilutions, also known as law of minimum dose. Homeopaths believes that very small doses of highly diluted substances stimulate the body heal itself and that the diluted medicine still retain its original essence, even when the dilution is so complete.

NATUROPATHY

- This form of health system is based on the belief that body has innate healing power that can establish, maintain and restore health.
- The emphasis is on supporting health rather than fighting disease. It relies on natural remedies such as sunlight, air, and water.
- It is not full side-effects free as even natural herbs have potential risks.
- Health can be restored by returning to nature which has healing power.
- The body has the power to maintain a state of health to heal itself with proper support.

AYURVEDA

- Ayurveda means science of life.
- Ayurveda medicine is all about balance in one’s life.
- Balance in your life begins the moment you are born.
- In ayurvedic medicine, the closer you are to your “prakriti”, the better.
- Ayurveda considers everything you encounter to have a therapeutic value.
- Whatever you come in contact with – foods, dress, way you sleep, what you see and hear affects you in some fashion and shapes you.

TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE

- This health system originated in ancient China. and has evolved over thousands of years.
Core Principles include:
- The world is shaped by opposing, yet complementary, forces – the basis for yin-yang theory.
- Health depends on the harmonious balance of energy circulating through pathways in the body.
- Symptoms and conditions can be categorized using these eight principles: cold/heat, interior/exterior, excess/deficiency and yin/yang.
- Five natural elements – fire, earth, water, metal and wood reflect how our bodies work and correspond to different organs and tissues.

- Allopathy searches for an alleged cause of the main symptoms and a disease name, based on generalities, homeopathy seeks only to build a complete picture of the patient’s suffering that stresses its rich individuality.
- Homeopathic medicines have similar biological effects to the illness
while allopathic medicines have different biological effects from the illness.
- Homeopathic medicines initiate a self-healing process, acting indirectly on the diseased cells and organs of the body while allopathic medicines act directly upon the tissues and the cells of the body, without any effects upon the body’s healing powers.
- Another important distinction between the two systems concerns their therapeutic aim. While homeopathy aims to gently and safely induce a full restoration of healthy and autonomous functioning of the whole organism through natural healing by enhancing the innate vital powers, allopathy chemically picks symptoms off one by one or in clusters, with no regard to the likely longer term consequences of such interventionist actions.
- Homeopathic medicines are free of side effects and toxicity while allopathic medicines may cause side effects in some cases and in the worst cases, may hasten or lead to death from toxicity.
- Homeopathic illness is felt to be a mere sign of biological imbalance which remedies try to correct. Conventionally defined “illness” is merely the reification of the imbalance while Allopathic illness as defined conventionally is felt to be a valid existential construct, equivalent to the sum of symptoms and physical manifestations.
- In homeopathic there is not a division made between mental and physical aspects of of health. The whole person is always treated while in allopathic, the mental and physical are felt to be sometimes overlapping or mutually influencing but separate areas of health, treated by different specialists.