Spider veins are small, damaged blood vessels in your body that resemble a larger variety of damaged blood vessels called varicose veins. In addition to causing unwanted cosmetic changes, they can trigger symptoms that include leg discomfort, pain, burning and itching. While exercise cannot improve all spider veins, it can ease or prevent the symptoms of damaged veins in your legs.
Spider Vein Basics
Spider veins occur near the surface of your skin and typically have a red or blue appearance, according to the American Academy of Dermatology. They are about as thick as a large hair, and might appear as unconnected lines or in interconnected groups or patterns. Most commonly, you will develop spider veins in your legs, but they can also form on your cheeks or nose. Potential underlying causes of these abnormal veins include genetic predisposition, use of birth control pills or hormone replacement therapy, pregnancy, puberty, unusual backups in your blood supply and wearing tight-fitting support hose or girdles. Spider veins on your face can be triggered by sun exposure.
Leg Veins
Spider veins and varicose veins tend to occur in your legs for a variety of reasons, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Womenshealth.gov. Relevant factors here include the effects of gravity, the pressure on your body weight imposes on your leg veins and the distance that blood in your legs must travel in order to return to your heart. In combination, these factors can overwhelm the uptake valves inside your blood vessels and lead to the formation of abnormal veins.
Exercise Effects
If you have spider veins in your legs, you might be able to ease their effects by regularly performing exercises such as walking, jogging and running that improve your blood circulation and increase your leg and vein strength, Womenshealth.gov reports. Taken together, these improvements might offset the forces that promote spider vein-related pain and discomfort. They might also stop spider veins from forming in the first place. Exercising can also help curb spider veins by encouraging weight loss and diminishing the amount of pressure placed on your leg veins.
Treating Facial Veins
If you have spider veins on your face, your doctor can treat them with methods that include lasers and a procedure called electrodesication, the AAD reports. Lasers achieve their beneficial effects by destroying a component of your red blood cells called hemoglobin. Electrodesication achieves its effects by drying out your spider vein-associated skin with heat supplied by a small amount of electric current. Your doctor can also use a form of nonlaser light called intense pulsed light.
Additional Steps
Womenshealth.gov lists additional methods to prevent or improve spider veins that include elevating your legs when resting, avoiding wearing high heels or crossing your legs while seated, avoiding sitting or standing for extended periods of time, wearing elastic support stockings and eating a diet low in salt and high in fiber. You can limit the occurrence of spider veins on your face by wearing sunscreen whenever you are exposed to sunlight.
