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It is difficult to diagnose leg veins without ultrasound imaging. I would recommend meeting with your local vein doctor. He will likely perform an ultrasound on your leg to see if there is any venous insufficiency or if it is simply a spider vein.
When it comes to veins, an easy way to make a distinction between normal and abnormal veins is whether the vein is very straight or not. If the vein in this area around your ankle is very straight and fades in to disappear into your calf, this is likely your great saphenous vein and has no abnormalities with it. If you have a twisty, ropey, vein on your leg, these usually represent varicose veins that can be treated.
Bulging vein is very common sign of varicose vein dysfunctions, it needs full evaluation by a vein doctor, if the vein study is positive, laser ablation of the dysfunctional vein (called great saphenous vein) will solve the problem.
Prominent veins in the ankle area can either be normal or the result of varicose veins from above. If there has been a change in the appearance of the vein is best to do a venous ultrasound to look for broken valves in the veins above. If the veins are quite small, what we call spider veins, you do have significant varicose veins above. If the vein is otherwise normal-appearing it may just simply be normal for you and should be left alone.
A bulging vein around the ankle should always be investigated with a venous duplex ultrasound scan to find out exactly what is going on. However, as a general principle if the vein is horizontal and going across the ankle bone on the outer side of the leg, then it is often associated with varicose veins.On the other hand if it is vertical and in front of the bone on the inside of the leg, then it might be the bottom of the great saphenous vein. However, most people would not term this as "across the ankle".As with all veins in the legs, you should never have any treatment without a venous duplex ultrasound scan performed by a specialist vascular technologist who works within a specialist venous practice. This will show you whether the vein that you are concerned about is merely the only problem, which is uncommon if it is bulging, or if it is part of a varicose vein or "hidden varicose vein" pattern of problems.With best wishes