Sclerotherapy is a procedure that safely and effectively treats spider and varicose veins in your legs without the weeks of recovery necessary for surgical procedures. At Advanced Vein and Laser Center, we want you to understand the benefits of sclerotherapy — including quick recovery time — so you can make the most informed decision.
Sclerotherapy involves the injection of a specialized solution directly into your affected veins, causing internal scarring.
This scarring forces your blood to move into healthier veins nearby, essentially collapsing the unhealthy ones. Your body eventually absorbs the affected veins into the surrounding tissue, leaving you with healthy-looking, smoother legs.
Sclerotherapy may be the ideal treatment if you want to improve the appearance of your legs, erasing unsightly varicose and spider veins. Nightly leg cramps are also a common symptom of unhealthy veins and may be relieved with sclerotherapy. Soon after your sclerotherapy treatment, you stand up and start walking around.
In many cases, you can expect to return to work or your usual activities without many restrictions. It may be best for you to avoid overexertion and strenuous exercises for days after treatment to allow your legs time to heal. Mild discomfort and bruising should resolve within two to six weeks. To enhance your results and prevent future blood clots, you need to wear compression socks or bandages to improve your blood flow and enhance your circulation.
You only need to use compression gear for about one week to ensure proper recovery from sclerotherapy treatment. At Advanced Vein and Laser Center, we make your safety is our first priority during sclerotherapy treatments. Risks of the procedure are minimal, with only slight bruising in the area of injection or raised, red bumps that resolve without treatment. During your treatment, you may feel mild stinging or muscle cramping at the injection site, but these go away after the injections.
There is no research to suggest that the ingredients in the sclerosant would be harmful to a fetus or breastfeeding infant. However, there is nothing to suggest that it is safe, either. Therefore, we cannot recommend this treatment to women who are with child or breastfeeding. If you developed spider or varicose veins during pregnancy, they were probably caused by pressure both inside and outside the veins. When you are pregnant, extreme hormone fluctuations occur and your body produces extra blood.
Simultaneously, the weight of a growing fetus puts pressure on your lower abdomen and makes it harder for your leg veins to return blood to the heart. These varicose veins should be treated with compression stockings. Unfortunately, if you are bedridden, you cannot be considered a good candidate for this treatment.
A major component of your post-treatment care routine is walking regularly. Another reason why you may not be considered for treatment is a history of blood clotting or severe inflammation in the area you wish to treat. Unfortunately, blood clots often go hand-in-hand with varicose veins. When the varicose veins are left untreated, blood clots can break off from the disordered venous wall and travel through the body. There is even a risk of the blood clot becoming lodged in one of your lungs.
Unfortunately, there is no way to tell whether the blood clot will remain in the area and be broken down by healthy tissue over time or travel through your bloodstream. The results of sclerotherapy last forever. However, other veins may become disordered due to genetic factors or lifestyle choices. We are more than happy to answer any and all questions you have about this sclerotherapy treatment, as well as alternatives that may be more appropriate.
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Cosmetic Surgery. Moreover, sometimes one can see the emergence of new and thinner veins around a successfully treated larger vein. These veins can be easily treated during a follow-up treatment session. It depends on many factors, including the technique of injection, the type, and strength of the solution used in sclerotherapy, the density and thickness of the vessels in a given area, as well as the skin complexion of the patient.
In our experience, most spider veins disappear between 2 weeks and two months. Reticular veins may require more than one session to disappear. It is advisable that pregnant or breastfeeding women postpone sclerotherapy, as fetal safety is not established. In addition, many women experience spontaneous disappearance of the unsightly veins in the months following delivery, making treatment unnecessary or simpler. Other than pregnant women, almost anyone can have sclerotherapy for hand and chest vein removal.
You should avoid leg vein sclerotherapy if you are bedridden, or cannot be physically active for whatever reason. You should also avoid sclerotherapy if you have a history of blood clots in the legs. Finally, do not have sclerotherapy if planning to tan in the weeks following the treatment or if you have a history of an allergic reaction to one of the sclerotherapy solutions. Not really. In fact, laser treatment ends up being a lot more painful than a comparable sclerotherapy treatment.
Moreover, when it comes to leg spider veins, laser treatments are generally significantly less effective in getting predictable, reliable outcome. Success in sclerotherapy is very technique and skill dependent.
First of all, choose your doctor well. Needless to say, an experienced vein doctor phlebologist would probably give you the best results. Success in spider vein removal by means of sclerotherapy is dependent on many factors, like:. For most vessels other than the tiniest leg spider veins, compression is believed to increase the effectiveness and safety of the procedure.
Compression enhances the effectiveness of the procedure by keeping the treated and injured vessels compressed and preventing the trapping of blood in them. Note that the trapped blood may lead to the pigmentation of the treated area and cause pain, inflammation. In addition, compression pushes the venous blood out of the leg faster and accelerates the blood circulation in the legs. In addition, wearing compression minimizes the chances of a clot formation in any of the non-targeted vessels.
This, of course, increases the safety and comfort of the procedure. To learn more, click compression therapy and compression stockings. Except for the tiniest spider veins, most patients would probably benefit from a week of compression therapy. You should put them on first thing in the morning and take them out the last thing at night, before sleep.
You can also remove them for a quick lukewarm shower, but avoid hot baths or sauna, as these dilate your veins. Serious medical complications from reticular and spider vein treatment with sclerotherapy are extremely rare when performed by a qualified physician.
Common side effects of spider vein treatment with sclerotherapy are usually temporary and well tolerated. The most common side effects of sclerotherapy include:. It is dependent on several factors, like the skill and technique of the doctor, the nature and strength of the solution, the density, size, and depth of the vessels treated, as well as your skin complexion. Most pigmentation resolves spontaneously over time, although it may sometimes take several months or longer to disappear.
Light-based treatments like IPL sometimes help expedite the process. Matting, not a common side effect, may disappear even if untreated. In resistant cases, it may be treated with a combination of sclerotherapy and or light based treatments like lasers and IPL Intense Pulsed Light. Cryo-sclerotherapy is a new modified sclerotherapy technique using cold air before and during the injections of sclerosing liquid into unsightly veins.
The use of cold air for cooling is not new in cosmetic surgery; for example, cold air is used for many laser procedures such as in laser resurfacing. Main advantages of cryo-sclerotherapy instead of traditional sclerotherapy rely on the physical effect of cold at treated veins, whereby the skin is cooled and numbed at the injection site.
This alleviates the discomfort during the procedure, reducing it to a sensation of multiple pinpricks or mosquito bites.
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