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procedures > vein treatments
* This procedure is for veins
(face & body).
If unsightly veins are keeping your legs under wraps, don’t despair. Unattractive legs plague 80% of women. Millions of women are bothered by unsightly spider veins or varicose veins. Spider veins, or telangiectasias are those small red, blue and purple blood vessels that appear most frequently on the face and thighs. Varicose veins are larger in diameter and may appear raised with a bluish color.
The leading causes of spider and varicose veins are heredity, aging, pregnancy, hormonal changes and obesity. Varicose veins can also be related to more serious vein disorders so they require a careful evaluation prior to treatment. We are now able to provide effective non surgical treatments for both varicose and spider veins. With new state-of-the –art ultrasound guidance, it is no longer necessary to have painful surgical stripping of varicose veins. There are non-surgical options today which allow immediate return to normal activities!
Benefits:
- non surgical treatment with no downtime
- short treatment times; you walk out of the office!
- no compression bandages after treatment
How it works:
If you have symptoms such as pain, aching, swelling in your legs or even restless legs at night, you may be suffering from underlying venous disease with incompetent veins. For these veins, a foam-like medication is injected while simultaneously monitoring the vein on an ultrasound screen. This allows for accurate placement of the medication into the diseased veins that often leak and feed into the bulging surface veins. The foam that is injected into the veins causes the vein walls to collapse. Compression stockings are then used for two days to make sure that the vein walls stay collapsed.
Spider veins can be treated with traditional sclerotherapy and/or lasers. Sclerotherapy is a simple procedure whereby the visible veins are injected with a sclerosing solution, which causes them to collapse and fade from view.
If sclerotherapy hasn’t worked for you in the past, it may be that you have underlying incompetent veins which you cannot see and can only be found with ultrasonic mapping of the lower limbs. If the underlying incompetent veins are closed with foam using ultrasound, visible sclerotherapy should work much better on the remaining superficial tiny spider veins.
Lasers allow delivery of a precise dosage of energy to each vein. The light energy is absorbed by the blood vessels, but not the surrounding tissue. This heat absorption causes a coagulation of the blood vessel, which is subsequently absorbed by the body.
What to expect:
At Vancouver Laser the entire vein anatomy of the lower limbs is mapped out with a sophisticated ultrasound. The causes of the varicose veins and spider veins are identified, and the problem is treated first at the source, and then followed up with treatment of the varicose veins. By treating the problem in this fashion, the long term success is very high, and the risks are very few. There is no surgical risk with anaesthesia, or downtime, or dressings, and very little discomfort. For varicose veins and spider veins multiple treatments may be required to reduce the unsightly appearance.
We recommend being reasonable in your expectations. If you have extensive vein issues that need to be addressed, it is often better to take care of them in more than one visit, to minimize the exposure to discomfort. You will likely have some bruising. Pigmentation changes may persist for a while, and it is dependant on your body's ability to clear the tissue. Discomfort is to be expected, but it is generally not significant and does not impair usual activities. You will have better results if you wear support stockings after leg procedures. Bruises may be covered with makeup.
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