A valued all-day companion

A sassy short hairstyle. An infectious laugh. And an astonishing life-affirming charm – despite vein problems: Wiebke Borgolte has been wearing Bauerfeind compression stockings since her mid-20s. She is “infinitely grateful” for the VenoTrain micro.

It happened 20 years ago during a weekend excursion to Cologne: Wiebke Borgolte looked down into the river Rhine from a bridge. She couldn’t believe her eyes: “My feet and lower legs were suddenly so swollen that I was barely able to take off my sandals,” the 44-year-old remembers. She’s had to battle with swollen feet since the end of puberty but this looked more like her grandmother’s condition who was suffering from weak veins. The following day, the qualified draftswoman went to the first physician she could make an appointment with. A stroke of luck, as it would turn out. He examined her thoroughly and issued a referral to a vein clinic in Ahrtal. This is where she was given the devastating diagnosis: extremely weak connective tissue, weak veins in the legs and narrowed veins at the back of the knees – in her mid-20s.  

“At that age, you ask yourself of course: will that disappear again?,” Wiebke Borgolte reports. It will not. The physician made that clear to her straight away and showed her off-putting photos of how her legs could look in ten years if she did not start to wear compression pantyhose immediately. A shock for the sporty young woman. 

A model for life

But rationality and increasing pain beat vanity. She visited a medical supply retailer in her home town of Kerpen, Germany, and tried her first Bauerfeind model. She has remained loyal to the brand ever since. Today, she wears the VenoTrain micro, compression class 2, and confirms: “Once you’ve found your product, you never want to switch. Fit and feel are simply perfect.” Apart from jogging and swimming, she wears the stockings for the entire day: at her work as an office manager in a construction company, when cycling, when pursuing her hobby of ballroom dancing, which she does three times a week with her partner, and during her voluntary assignments for the emergency service unit of the German Red Cross. In this role, she experienced the devastating flooding in the Rhineland in July up close and personal: “Compared with what I saw there, my problems seem very insignificant.”

However, it is not always easy for the attractive lady in her mid-40s to wear all her compression garments, even if her infectious cheerful nature gives that impression: “You always feel like you have to explain yourself if you’re out and about in winter, wearing shorts, pantyhose and boots. I simply deal with situations like this head-on and tell them: come on, people, they’re compression stockings!” This was also the case at a ball where she was wearing a strapless evening dress, and suitable for the occasion, a pantyhose version with a glossy look. A fellow dancer was thrilled by the pantyhose and wanted to find out more – and got the dry standard reply

The best treatment to combat pain

When dancing or in winter, Wiebke Borgolte chooses black or dark blue, otherwise, she prefers caramel. In the current season, she tried the ruby-colored Wild Berry with the Tango pattern for the first time. However, “On hot summer days, the pantyhose is a burden, of course,” Cologne-born Wiebke concedes. “But the burning, dull pain when you don’t wear them is not an option either!” And since weak connective tissue gets worse over time, she tries to talk sense into anyone who has any indications of vein problems: “Start wearing stockings as soon as possible. From a certain age, any damage done cannot be reversed.” Even surgery can only be a temporary relief because weak and narrowed veins are a chronic condition after all.

That is why the office worker is all the more surprised about how little attention the subject gets within the healthcare system. She goes to her check-up appointments with a phlebologist every few years, on her own initiative. Her family physician merely prescribes her one pair of stockings twice a year. “Nowhere near enough, if you wear them every day.” For Wiebke Borgolte, the VenoTrain micro has become a second skin over the years: “I can’t even imagine living without these stockings!”

Images: Michael Bause