It should have the happiest period of Sarah Stenton’s life: welcoming two baby daughters within 14 months and looking ahead to a lifetime of motherhood, memories and joy.
But quietly developing during her pregnancies was a varicose vein on the outer calf of her left leg – a condition that would go on to devastate her confidence for 20 years.
Ms Stenton, from Matlock, Derbyshire, first noticed the vein shortly after the birth of her first daughter, Ella, when she was just 29.
Varicose veins – swollen, twisted veins that bulge beneath the skin – are commonly found during and after pregnancy due to increased pressure on the veins and changes in blood flow that can cause blood to pool in the legs.
‘I was aware of it, but it wasn’t horrendous, so I was still happy to wear shorts,’ the now-54-year-old tells the Daily Mail. ‘It just felt itchy and hot.’
However, after the birth of her second daughter, Holly, the vein rapidly worsened. ‘It was shaped like an S,’ she recalls. ‘I called it my blue snake. It was very prominent and quite lumpy and very obviously there.
‘My husband David kept forgetting I had it and he’d say to me, “have you bruised your leg? Have you knocked your leg” My daughters would say “mummy, what’s that?”. It was not malicious in the slightest but it just made me aware that it was noticeable.’
Those comments – along with what she felt were lingering stares by people in the street – marked the beginning of two decades of crippling self-consciousness throughout her 30s and 40s.
Sarah Stenton suffered with a large varicose vein after giving birth to her two daughters
Ms Stenton labelled the vein her ‘blue snake’ and said it shattered her confidence for decades, left, before it was removed
Ms Stenton said: ‘I didn’t feel attractive. I was 32, I should have felt the most care-free at that age.’
Almost overnight, she pushed her dresses, sarongs and cropped jeans to the back of her wardrobe, replacing them with long trousers to conceal her legs – no matter how uncomfortable wearing them in the heat became.
The change left her feeling isolated. None of her friends had the same problem and, during summer get-togethers, she felt awkward as the only one covering up.
But it was not only her confidence that suffered – the vein was physically painful too.
Before giving birth, Ms Stenton had worked in an estate agent’s office, meaning she spent much of her day sitting down – one of several factors linked to varicose veins, alongside obesity, pregnancy and a history of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), a potentially dangerous blood clot that typically forms in the leg.
In some cases, however, the condition can also run in families – and Ms Stenton believes genetics played a role in hers, with both her mother and grandmother having suffered from varicose veins during pregnancy.
After becoming a mother herself, Ms Stenton launched her own business and found herself constantly ‘keeping plates spinning’ as she balanced work and family life.
Quietly, though, the vein would keep her in pain. It continued to tear away at her confidence and her physical pain threshold, until one day, six years after first noticing it, she decided enough was enough.
Ms Stenton sought out the help of her GP, however to her extreme disappointment, she claims her doctor said it was a ‘vanity project’ and dismissed her pleas.
‘I wish I’d had the confidence then that I’ve got now,’ she said. ‘Because I would have said, ‘I don’t think it is a vanity project’.
‘I think actually it’s quite impactful. It’s painful. It’s affecting me in the summer because I don’t want to be, running around with the kids in shorts and I’m always covered up.
When walking her dogs she wears shorter trousers that show off her legs after the procedure
‘I think it was a little bit dismissive just to say, ‘oh, it’s a vanity thing’. There are obviously worse things, of course there are, but there are lesser things as well that are done on the NHS.
‘It would have been nice for them take it a little bit more seriously rather than just to essentially be told I was vain. I didn’t like that. I thought it completely missed the point.
‘I wasn’t going in because I was vain and I wanted it removed. I was going in because it was having an impact on my life. It was quite painful and it was unsightly in a very obvious place.
‘So, I felt a bit peed off by the response.’
Dismayed by the lack of support, Ms Stenton later created a Facebook page called Middle Age Madness, where women discuss the realities of middle age from menopause and hot flushes to, of course, varicose veins.
Then, by chance, a representative from Veincentre – a London clinic specialising in varicose vein, thread vein and leg ulcer treatments – contacted her after seeing one of her posts about the condition.
‘I’d honestly put it to the back of my mind when they reached out,’ she said. ‘I’d just resigned myself to having the vein, and that was it.’
The clinic offered her treatment free of charge and, despite initially feeling guilty about accepting it, she decided to be the ‘guinea pig’.
Ms Stenton underwent endovenous laser ablation – a procedure that seals veins shut using laser heat – alongside foam sclerotherapy, in which a medicated foam is injected into the vein to make it collapse and gradually disappear.
More than 20 years after first developing the condition, her legs have now been completely transformed.
‘I feel awful complaining about it because at the end of the day, it was just a vein,’ Ms Stenton says.
‘But I don’t think I realised quite how impactful it was until I had it removed.
‘When the treatment was done I looked down at my legs and honestly, I nearly cried because it was the first time in 22 years that I had a pair of legs that matched.
‘I didn’t feel embarrassed to have my leg out. I didn’t feel as if I had to hide it away. It was just such a relief that it wasn’t there.
‘I don’t think I’d realised quite how, how much of an impact it had on me and how conscious I was of it until it was gone.
Now I’m happy to walk around in shorts, go to the shops, supermarkets. I haven’t done that for years. I wouldn’t have dreamt of it.
So, it’s a nice feeling to finally be rid of it.’
