Spider Veins & Treatment
Don’t hide your legs! Get rid of Varicose or Spider Veins!
Trust Experience!
Spider veins or telangiectasias are tiny, red or blue, dilated veins that occur within the skin. They are often fed by larger “blue veins” or reticular veins that occur just under the skin. It is important to close these feeder veins if possible prior to treating the telangiectasias.
Spider veins are often symptomatic, causing aching, throbbing, itching, burning sensations as well as restless leg syndrome. Most all insurance companies however consider spider veins to be a cosmetic problem and will not pay to have them treated.
Leg spider veins can be treated with laser, IPL (intense pulsed light) or sclerotherapy. Dr. Critchlow has extensive experience with each of these modalities; however, he is currently recommending sclerotherapy for spider veins. Sclerotherapy has been found to be equally or more effective, it is cheaper and less painful than either laser or IPL treatments for spider veins.
Sclerotherapy
Sclerotherapy is a common procedure for treating small to medium sized veins (spider veins). A tiny needle is used to inject a solution into the vein which irritates the inner lining of the vein causing it to collapse, scar and eventually reabsorb. Different concentrations of the sclerosant solution are used for different size veins. A common technique and one used at The Vein & Esthetic Centre, is to foam the solution before it is injected. This greatly increases the effectiveness of the solution and allows us to use more volume per session. There is minimal discomfort with these injections, often a feeling of a little mosquito bite or often nothing at all.
You may need anywhere from one to several injection sessions for each vein region. The number of injections per session can vary widely depending on the size of the vein injected. A session of sclerotherapy is limited by the volume of solution injected. Dr. Critchlow will be able to give you an estimate of how many sessions may be required.
