Soaking your feet in hot water is a wellness concept for many people. The most common claim is that soaking the feet invigorates the blood and removes blood stasis. Let’s start with the knowledge of the blood vessels in the lower extremities of the body. The arteries of the lower extremities are rich in nutrients and oxygen, and travel from the heart down to the legs and feet. After capillary exchange, metabolites (waste) are returned to the heart through venous blood. The arterial blood and venous blood are borne by two types of blood vessels in the body: arteries, and veins, respectively. The distribution of blood vessels in the legs is like a network of branches, all over the muscles and skin. If the arteries dilate, the flow of arterial blood with nutrients increases. If the veins are dilated, the venous blood carrying waste is stagnant. When you soak your feet, the local temperature increases, which causes the arteries to dilate, especially the skin vessels. Therefore, the term blood activation and stasis removal roughly comes from this. After a hot water soak, the skin will feel comfortably cool, which is due to the expansion of pores to dissipate heat. In view of this, and many people like to soak their feet, including myself and my family. Unfortunately, for patients with vascular disease, foot soaks often lead to aggravation or worsening of the condition, or even disaster. In my vascular clinic, I often encounter these patients in excruciating pain. I don’t blame the patients and their families. Because lower extremity vascular patients often feel cold in the lower extremities, they naturally think of hot water foot soaking. Then why the result is not what you want? 1, varicose veins, venous thrombosis Hot water soaking feet, the lower extremity arteries expand, especially the skin is congested with blood. More arterial blood enters the lower limbs. And the reflux capacity of veins does not increase as a result. Therefore, hot water foot soaking is adding oil to the fire for patients with venous disease who have poor or blocked reflux, which will aggravate the blood stagnation. At the same time, it can lead to capillary rupture and the formation of bleeding spots on the skin, which over time leads to pigmentation and darkening of the lower legs. Patients with venous thrombosis who are taking anticoagulant drugs will have more severe bleeding. Therefore, hot water foot soaking is harmful for varicose veins and venous thrombosis patients. 2, arterial occlusive disease lower limb arterial occlusion is the performance of lower limb ischemia. Hot water soaking feet, and can not expand the occluded blood vessels. Of course, the expansion of open arteries only increases the blood flow of normal tissue, and ischemic tissue may be because of the “blood theft” phenomenon, more ischemic. This explains why, in principle, patients with arterial occlusions do not choose vasodilators, but rather anticoagulants or antiplatelet agents. In addition, medical research has concluded that the increase in peripheral temperature increases the oxygen consumption of tissues and aggravates ischemia. Similarly, although cold ischemic legs, the use of infrared heat therapy must be prohibited. 3, diabetic foot Diabetic foot is divided into three categories: neuropathic, ischemic and mixed type. Some patients with neuropathy type, can be manifested as legs and feet feel strange cold, afraid of cold. Therefore, hot water soaking feet can easily become the choice. The tragedy is that once the neuropathy is present, the patient’s sensory feedback mechanisms for pain and water temperature fail. As a result, patients tend to keep heating the water so much that they are unaware of the severe burns. The ischemic diabetic foot, on the other hand, is similar to arterial occlusive disease. Therefore, arterial occlusive disease of the lower extremities and diabetic foot, high temperature foot soaking can lead to amputation! Know this truth. It is recommended that before soaking your feet, you should clarify whether you have the above-mentioned vascular disease. If not, only then you can enjoy with confidence.