Easter Dinner & Leg Pain: What’s the Correlation?

After a holiday, patients frequently complain about leg pain. Especially, holidays where hours of cooking are involved like Thanksgiving, Easter, Christmas, Passover, etc. Some people who may have mild venous reflux disease, may not notice any symptoms until they are standing for hours- like during cooking. Over the years, we always hear from patients that their legs were aching and fatigued after cooking. The reason for this is venous reflux disease causes backflow of blood. The blood pools in the legs and the pooling of blood causes sensations of heaviness, fatigue, aching, and even night cramps and restlessness. Ankle swelling may also be more prominent. Elevating the legs allows the blood to flow in the correct direction and reduces the pooling of blood and symptoms. Wearing compression stockings during cooking can be helpful to reduce symptoms. Also when standing upright for hours, it is helpful to do calf pump raises.

Leaky vein valves allow blood to pool, causing leg pain, heaviness, and fatigue.