One of the great things about living in the Sunshine State is that we enjoy mild temperatures year-round. This also means that leg-baring clothing likely makes up much of your wardrobe. If varicose veins or spider veins are forcing your legs into hiding, the good news is that we can clear these blood vessels from the surface of your legs.
At Soffer Health Institute, our team of vascular experts, which is led by Dr. Ariel Soffer, offers several effective treatments for getting rid of spider veins and varicose veins on your legs. Here’s a look at how these veins develop and what we can do about them.
Spider veins and varicose veins are very common and affect women more than men, largely because of hormonal differences. In fact, nearly 50% of women have some degree of spider veins in their legs.
These veins aren’t usually dangerous, although severe varicose veins can lead to pain, cramping, and ulcers.
In most cases, spider and varicose veins form as a result of faulty valves in the veins of your legs. Your veins are responsible for transporting blood back to your heart, but the veins in your legs have a tougher job as they have to fight both distance and gravity. To help, the veins in your legs are equipped with tiny valves that shut off as blood passes through, preventing your blood from spilling backward.
If your valves are weak and fail to close properly, your blood can pool and enlarge your vein, forcing it toward the surface of your skin.
Spider veins are much smaller than varicose veins, and they typically don’t end up bulging through the surface of your skin, which makes them easier to treat. In most cases, we can use state-of-the-art laser technology to break up the blood vessel. Rest assured, if the vein was active, your blood reroutes itself to healthier vessels deeper in your tissue.
If your spider veins are on the larger side, we may turn toward one of several minimally invasive surgical techniques, which we typically use for varicose veins (see below).
If you’d like to clear your legs of bulging varicose veins, we can tackle the problem in one of several ways:
This is a technique in which we inject a special solution directly into your varicose vein, which causes it to collapse.
Using laser or radiofrequency energy, we seal off your varicose vein, forcing your blood into healthier blood vessels.
If we’ve tried the techniques above to no avail, we can remove the vein surgically through a small incision.
In each of these cases, we perform these procedures right in our offices on an outpatient basis, which means you’re free to go home directly afterward.
If you’d like to clear your legs of spider or varicose veins, please contact one of our offices in Aventura, Deerfield Beach, or Weston, Florida.
