Your body contains over 100,000 kilometres of blood vessels when added together. This is enough to circle the Earth more than twice. Veins are one of three types of blood vessel, alongside arteries and capillaries.

Arteries carry oxygen-rich blood away from your heart to your organs and tissues. After your body uses that oxygen, the blood needs to return to the heart. This is the job of your veins. Veins carry used, oxygen-poor blood back to the heart. The right side of the heart then pumps it to the lungs to be refreshed with oxygen. Then the left side of the heart pumps it out to your brain and your body through the arteries, and the cycle continues.

Veins have thinner walls than arteries because the blood inside them is under less pressure. To help blood move uphill, especially from your legs, veins contain one-way valves. These valves open to let blood through, then snap shut to stop it flowing backwards.
There are three main layers to a vein wall: an outer fibrous layer for support, a middle muscular layer, and a smooth inner lining called the endothelium. When veins are healthy, this lining is slippery and blood flows freely. Veins can become diseased for various reasons often slowing or stopping blood to flow back to the heart. At our Woolloomooloo Vein Clinic in Sydney’s inner Eastern Suburbs we have specialist Surgeons and sonographers who can check your leg vein health as well as diagnose and treat all vein conditions