Your Calves Are Called the "Second Heart"
Every time your calf muscles contract, they squeeze the deep veins in your legs, pushing blood upward against gravity back to your heart. Valves in your veins prevent the blood from flowing backward.
This mechanism is so critical that vascular specialists call it the "calf muscle pump" or the "peripheral heart."
But as we age, or if we're sedentary, or after pregnancy, this pump weakens. The muscles don't contract as forcefully. Blood pools in the lower legs. You feel heaviness, aching, and fatigue—but your ultrasound shows "normal" because the veins themselves aren't damaged yet.
2-3x
Higher prevalence in women over 45
40%
Of adults over 50 experience early venous insufficiency