What Is the Blood Vessel Illness Trump Is Recognized With?
After pictures confirmed President Donald Trump with swollen ankles and bruised fingers, the White Home revealed he has persistent venous insufficiency—a blood vessel illness that impacts circulation within the legs
U.S. president Donald Trump meets with French president Emmanuel Macron within the Oval Workplace on the White Home on February 24, 2025.
Picture by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos
Editor’s Be aware (7/17/25): This story has been up to date with extra reporting and knowledgeable commentary.
President Donald Trump has been recognized with persistent venous insufficiency, a illness of the vessels that carry blood back to the heart from elsewhere within the physique.
White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt disclosed the analysis throughout a press convention on July 17 in response to public concern raised by pictures of the president with vital swelling round his ankles and bruises on his fingers.
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A July 17 letter from Sean Barbabella, the president’s doctor, notes that the Trump underwent a number of diagnostic exams, together with bloodwork and an echocardiogram, which didn’t determine any indicators of systemic sickness or coronary heart failure. “President Trump stays in glorious well being,” Barbabella wrote.
Persistent venous insufficiency is “a really, quite common factor, and for [President Trump’s] age it’s completely comprehensible that he has it,” says Monara Dini, a treating doctor on the College of California, San Francisco Heart for Limb Preservation.
[Related: Why Aging Comes in Dramatic Waves in Our 40s and 60s]
Persistent venous insufficiency—a subset of a bigger class of circumstances known as venous issues—predominantly impacts the legs and causes solely ache quite than extra severe hurt or systemic points. The situation is kind of frequent—affecting maybe 5 p.c of U.S. adults, according to Cleveland Clinic—and the chance of creating it will increase as folks age.
The community of vessels that carries blood all through the physique consists of two important kinds of tubing. Arteries carry freshly oxygenated blood away from the core of your physique to the extremities whereas veins carry blood again to the guts and lungs. Arteries want to face up to excessive strain and solely include between 10 and 15 p.c of the physique’s blood at a time.
Veins are underneath a lot much less strain and due to this fact can have thinner partitions and maintain extra blood. As well as, they include one-way valves that preserve blood flowing within the correct route, again towards the inner organs. Persistent venous insufficiency is characterised by weakened valves in leg veins permitting blood to circulate backward and pool underneath the pressure of gravity, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine. These valves leak extra usually as folks age, Dini says.
The most typical reason behind persistent venous insufficiency is a blood clot that damages the valve. Signs of the situation predominantly have an effect on the legs and embody achiness, cramping at night time, swelling and discoloration, leathery trying pores and skin and open sores known as ulcers.
“The worst consequence of getting this situation is ulcers that may develop,” Dini says. “The pores and skin is retaining a lot fluid that it might probably sooner or later burst and break the pores and skin, and also you develop ulcerations. It occurs lots, and that’s extra devastating within the sense that it requires wound care. It may be painful and life-altering.”
Make-up covers a bruise on the again of Trump’s hand as he hosts Macron for conferences on the White Home on February 24, 2025.
Picture by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos
Bruising of the fingers will not be a symptom of persistent venous insufficiency, Dini says. In his letter about Trump, Barbabella attributes this to “minor comfortable tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and the usage of aspirin, which is taken as a part of an ordinary cardiovascular prevention routine.”
Persistent venous insufficiency is extra prone to happen in people who find themselves chubby or pregnant, who’ve had a leg harm or blood clots or who’ve members of the family who’ve additionally handled persistent venous insufficiency. Different danger elements can embody smoking and inadequate train.
Usually, administration of persistent venous insufficiency depends on retaining the legs elevated, growing train and lowering weight. Compression remedy, which might embody utilizing compression socks or pumps, also can assist alleviate signs, Dini says. In sure circumstances, medical doctors might suggest minor surgical interventions to both restore or take away broken tissue. Persistent venous insufficiency is a progressive situation that can not be healed or reversed, nevertheless.
