Spider Veins

An ulcer is an open skin sore that can appear anywhere on your body. The red, swollen sores that ooze aren’t exactly pleasant to look at and are even painful. While ulcers can form anywhere on the body, they most often form on the legs. Venous ulcers are often the result of poor blood circulation in the legs and are a condition that shouldn’t be ignored. The open skin sore can develop into a serious problem if left untreated. Unlike a cut or a scrape, which heal naturally via the body’s healing process, an ulcer can not heal without proper treatment and can possibly lead to infection. Thankfully, with the appropriate advice and guidance, it’s possible to manage a venous ulcer.

The question whether sclerotherapy or laser works best for spider veins inevitably comes up in consultations frequently. And rightly so. A comprehensive vein treatment center wouldn’t be complete if it only offered a single option to patients. Our patients are unique, and treatment should be to.

Why Did My Varicose Veins Come Back? "I had my varicose veins treated years ago, and now they are back! I thought they were fixed!” I have heard this statement often enough in clinic. Maybe you are echoing those same thoughts. Wondering why your legs hurt again months, or maybe years after having treatments. Was treatment even beneficial? Why are there bulging veins again?

Help! My spider veins came back after they were treated! You decided to work up the nerve to do something about the spider veins on your legs. You went to get treatment, and you have a solution injected into your spider veins. In the office you see them seemingly disappear before your eyes. “This is great! Finally, they are going to go away!” you say to yourself. Maybe they asked you to wear compression hose for a couple weeks, maybe not. But one day you find yourself looking at your legs and realize with horror the veins came right back! What happened?

Saline isn’t working! Is there anything else that works for my spider veins? First of all we are talking about Sclerotherapy- injecting veins in order to close them and make them disappear. It is the best way to get rid of spider veins. I have seen too often purple veins lasered and not only have they not disappeared but they have taken pigment with it- permanently. Don’t get me wrong, laser works for very faint veins (red in color) but if they have dilated to purple it has gone too far. Even more advanced is the presence of a green feeder vein around a patch of purple veins. Those cannot be closed with Saline.

Why do you perform a screening ultrasound before fixing my spider veins? They’re just spider veins. This is one of the most common questions I receive from patients during their initial visit to our vein center. I understand. You can see the spider veins on the surface. That’s all there is, right? You simply inject them with a solution and they magically disappear. Yet some people who have had treatments before will tell you that’s not always the case. “They came right back” is what they tell me. That is a red flag. There is probably something else going on under the surface that may need to be treated first.