Spider Veins

Spider Veins

Two Common Causes of Recurrence After Treatment

Many times patients come in with minimal swelling or pain, but tell me that they have had their spider veins treated with sclerotherapy, and they just keep coming back.   Typically there are two reasons for this.  The most common method of treating spider veins is to inject the veins with hypertonic saline.  This is a concentrated salt solution which causes irritation to the vein wall lining leading to a collapse of the vein.  The advantage of hypertonic saline is it is very safe.  The big disadvantage is that it does not always work so well.  At Advanced Venous Solutions, we rarely use hypertonic saline, unless a patient requests it.  We typically treat with the FDA approved chemical, polidocinol.  This medication is safe and much more effective at sclerosing or sealing the spider veins.

The second reason people will see recurrence is that they may have underlying venous insufficiency .  What this means is that there may be blood leaking backwards from larger veins causing back pressure into smaller veins which are visible just below the skin.  To evaluate venous insufficiency, a venous ultrasound or venous function study is performed.  Based on this study we may be able to provide a more complete treatment for the spider veins with the ultimate goal to get your legs looking and feeling better!

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