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What are Spider Veins?
Are your legs plagued by unsightly spider veins? Many people are embarrassed to wear shorts or a bathing suit in public as a result of these nuisances and sometimes try to cover their legs with makeup. If you suffer from this disorder, you may want to receive spider vein treatment for your spider vein disease.
What Are the Symptoms of Spider Veins?
Spider veins are those short, spindly veins close to the surface of the skin that have a spider-like appearance. They can also look like thread-like branches or little sticks and vary in color from purple to red to blue. Spider veins often appear on the face, thighs, calves or ankles.
Unlike other types of veins, they are sometimes more of a cosmetic nuisance rather than a medical problem. However, only a medical professional can determine whether they are a cause for concern or merely aesthetic. If you are troubled by the look of spider veins, luckily, there are procedures that successfully erase or reduce their appearance.
What Causes Spider Veins?
There are different reasons that these tiny veins appear on your skin. On your face, they occur after blood vessels burst. This is exacerbated by sun damage but may also be from increased pressure in that region.
However, when spider veins are in the legs, they generally happen when the valves inside the veins do not function properly. This may be indicative of a more serious vein problem.
How Are Spider Veins Treated?
There are different options for spider vein disease treatment depending upon the severity, including:
- Sclerotherapy treatment
- Endovenous laser ablation treatment (EVLA)
- Wearing compression stockings
Many patients have had very successful results with sclerotherapy, finding a much-improved appearance afterward. It is a wonderful feeling to see these veins practically disappear after this simple treatment.
Why Choose Northern Illinois Vein Clinic?
At Northern Illinois Vein Clinic, your care is provided by a team of knowledgeable, compassionate professionals who have devoted their careers to providing excellent care to their patients.
If you are tired of looking at your spider veins and wish to have them treated, set up an appointment with Northern Illinois Vein Clinic. We are here to provide you with a free consultation so we can screen your vein issues. Our experienced, professional team is here to help make the spider vein treatment process as painless as possible, so contact us today.
Causes
Spider veins are the result of unhealthy valves that prohibit normal blood flow back to the heart. This backflow of blood can cause the veins just below the surface of the skin to stop working, developing the presence of spider veins. They can happen to anyone but are most common in pregnant women and patients over the age of 50. Other factors include:
- Hereditary and genetic factors
- Prolonged standing
- Being overweight
- Puberty, pregnancy and menopause (hormonal influences)
- Hormone treatment after menopause
- Irregular hormones caused by birth control
- Abdominal pressure from constipation, tight clothing or tumors
- Blood clots
Symptoms
Symptoms of spider veins occur mainly in your legs and in other places such as your face or hands and can include fatigue, aches, pains and a heavy feeling in the legs. Less commonly you may notice swelling or darkening of the skin in the ankles.
Elevating the effective area (above the heart) or wearing support stockings are great ways to lessen your symptoms.
Treatments
Before we consider any kind of treatment, you will be screened to make sure we completely understand your symptoms. From there, we will perform ultrasound vein mapping, so we can see exactly where the problem veins are located. If treatment is needed, we perform sclerotherapy, the most efficient and effective spider vein treatment option. This procedure is minimally invasive and requires little to no recovery time. In fact, most patients are able to drive themselves home after treatment and typically return to their normal activities the same day.
Featured Patient
Long days of teaching exacerbated the burning and restless feelings in Kendra Brauer’s legs. The bruises and visible veins also provoked curious questions from her second-grade students if she wore anything shorter than full-length pants. Brauer first noticed a bruise on her leg when she was in her mid-20s. Slowly, more veins showed up and […]
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