How exactly do arteries and veins normally connect and what happens when they don’t properly connect?

How exactly do arteries and veins normally connect and what happens when they don’t properly connect?

Blood moves through your body within an organized closed circuit of blood vessels. Your arteries carry oxygen-rich blood from your heart to your brain and to the rest of your body’s organs and tissues. Your veins return oxygen- and nutrient-depleted blood and waste products from tissues back to your heart and lungs. The exchange takes place in your capillaries, where the smallest blood vessel units of arteries and veins connect with each other. This is how normal blood circulation works

If you have an AVM, this “bridge” of capillaries between your arteries and veins is missing. The malformation can begin anywhere along the vascular tree, from the arterial (arteries) side to the arterial-capillary and the venous (veins) side.

The force of the blood flow from your arteries brings a lot of pressure to the AVM. Veins have weak walls and can’t always adjust to the pressure of blood flow. If your veins can’t handle the blood pressure, it might burst and bleed, which can cause significant health problems.