Question:
I seem to recall reading somewhere that taking estrogen can contribute to varicose veins in the legs. My doctor says he's never heard of this, but I distinctly remember reading it -- I think it was in a book about varicose veins. I asked him because, when I took Prempro (I quit after several months) I am sure I developed a couple of bulging varicose leg veins because of the hormones. I'd never had this problem before, and have never had it again since stopping the Prempro. The varicose veins I DID develop are still there, though, after two years off the hormones. Has anyone else heard of this happening?

Answer: -No, I haven't heard of this happening. The only experience I've had with varicose veins was my MIL had them operated on (before she was my MIL) 25 years ago. because they were so bad. She didn't (still hasn't) take estrogen. She was 38 at the time. I have read that spider veins are caused by estrogen. (I don't remember where I read this!) They can occur from estrogen that is produced naturally by the female body, which is why many women get them while pregnant. -Interesting. My mother, who took high dosage estrogen bcps (norinyl) in the 60s and 70s -through the decade of her 40s,-developed spectacular spider veins over the entire front of each shin during those years. She was so embarrassed by them that she began to wear long pants - quite uncomfortable in Fla.! She developed a slow growing but impossible to eradicate breast cancer that was diagnosed at age 50. She died last Feb. after a quarter of a century of mutilating surgeries, bouts of chemotherapy, radiation treatments, secondary cancers in the lung and endometrium from the radiation and tamoxifen treatments, etc. etc. I won't go near an exogenous hormone with the proverbial ten foot pole! -I, too, got numerous spider veins after short-term bcp use in the early 70s. It seems to me it was one of the "known" side-effects, but I can't remember if I actually read it, or if my doctor just said, "Yes, that happens to some women."