In the body of a healthy human being, blood comes to the heart by resisting the gravitational force of the Earth; it flows without any problems like from the feet to the heart. This is possible due to a system of blood valves that allow blood to go through, like flood-gates or canal locks, only in one direction. It is important to remember that vein valves work in a passive way, they do not have their own energy due to which they could open and close by themselves.

It would be impossible without supporting mechanisms such as an arterial pump, an artery located next to a vein that rhythmically contracts and pushes veins located next to it, to stimulate the flow of blood. The second important mechanism is a muscular pump that mainly works in the feet and shank areas.

As we already know, the blood valves just like flood-gates in canals allow the flow of blood in only one direction. The muscular pump squeezes the vein while walking, resulting in the blood being pushed up. When the muscle relaxes, the valve closes and keeps blood at a certain level. During the next contraction, blood moves up. Malfunctioning of this process causes varicose veins to form.

Varicose veins are mostly created when large amounts of pressure operate for too long on the walls of the blood vessels. This happens due to an inflammation of the vein valves or due to a prolonged pressure of veins created by long amounts of sitting or not enough body movement. First the valves do not open or close correctly, later they completely lose their ability to do their function. Consequences are unpleasant as the blood cannot flow in the right direction. While the blood flows in the opposite direction (reflux) it pools, forcing the vein wall outward which leads to the failure of other valves.

After a partial loss of functioning of certain parts of the blood vessels, more and more blood valves start malfunctioning. This is how varicose veins develop constantly, by acquiring more and more parts of blood vessels until they take over the whole blood vessel system. We have to look at varicose veins as a cascade/waterfall illness because they are always created lower than the passing valves.