Spider veins. Ugh.
Those purple, red, and blue clusters of web-like veins just under the surface of your skin are more unwelcome than a December ice storm. They can make you avoid wearing a swimsuit or shorts, just to keep them covered up. But if you let Dr. Musick get rid of your spider veins now, you’ll be in great shape for those invitations to head over the Horseshoe Lake, Carlyle Reservoir, or just a friend’s pool next summer. He uses sclerotherapy to make your spider veins disappear.
What causes spider veins?
Veins are the highways for the blood to return to the heart. And in the legs they have a real fight with gravity. Our muscles, skin, and other tissues usually help push the blood upward in the legs, but as we age, the strength of the support tissues and even of the veins themselves can diminish. This can allow the blood to back up and pool in spots. This shows itself in spider and varicose veins. Because spider veins are just below the surface of the skin they are very visible.
How does Dr. Musick get rid of them?
Sclerotherapy is nothing new. It was first used in the 1930s to make unwanted veins close up and go away. Dr. Musick has looked into using lasers to treat spider veins, but he has found that they aren’t as effective as sclerotherapy.
In sclerotherapy, Dr. Musick injects a special saline solution called a sclerosant directly into the vein in question. This solution irritates the vein and causes the walls to shrink up and the vein to close off. Over the next two to three months, the body gradually absorbs the unused vein, making it disappear or become dramatically less visible. Any blood that ran through the vein is routed to an adjacent vein.
What happens afterward?
After your treatment, we put you in compression stockings that you’ll wear for two weeks during your waking hours. This compression improves your results so most veins need only one injection to disappear.
Winter is the time to get rid of your spider veins. Call us at Musick Dermatology, (618) 628-2588 to schedule your appointment.