What to Expect After Sclerotherapy for Spider Veins

Spider veins are common and not dangerous, but they do mar the appearance of the legs and face, leading many women and men to seek treatment. Fortunately, getting rid of spider veins isn’t that hard.

At New Image Medical Spa in Fremont, California, Dr. Surinder Sandhu treats spider veins using a modern form of the age-old method known as sclerotherapy. This method is safe and effective and often erases spider veins for good in just one outpatient visit.

Spider veins: a quick overview

Bulging, ropy veins in your legs are called varicose veins, and these can be a red flag that something is seriously wrong with your venous health. However, smaller veins in your legs may show through as red or purple thread-like “squiggles.” 

These are the smallest veins in the body, the capillaries. When they become compromised and show through the skin, they’re called spider veins. On the legs, you’re most likely to see them appear on the calf or near the ankle.  

Why spider veins happen

Your arteries carry blood away from your heart, and your veins push it back to the heart. Sometimes tiny one-way valves inside veins get damaged, and blood is allowed to slip backwards and pool up in the vein.

When this happens to capillaries, you get the visible tracing down your calves and around your ankles. Pressure on the legs from obesity, pregnancy, or standing for long periods of time can put you at risk. So can having a familial history of spider veins, or simply getting older.

Spider veins usually don’t hurt or make you feel anything at all, but they can make you self-conscious, and you’ll wish you could just get rid of them. That’s what sclerotherapy is for.  

What to expect

Dr. Sandhu uses sclerotherapy to get rid of your visible spider veins. If you have a handful of veins to be treated at once, you can expect a 20- to 30-minute treatment time. The blood immediately diverts to another, healthier vein nearby. 

After sclerotherapy, you might see a little bit of bruising or darkening of the skin at the treatment sites at first, but these will quickly fade. Then you’ll see your spider veins slowly disappear as the treated capillaries break down completely and get flushed out of the body naturally.   

Ready to say goodbye to your spider veins? To learn more about sclerotherapy, call our office at 510-269-2960 to set up a consultation, or request an appointment online today.