The Fall and Winter Are The Best Times To Get Your Veins Fixed
Summer has come to a close. Fall weather is settling in. The bathing suits, shorts, and sandals are being packed away for next year in favor of long pants, stockings and warm boots. For many, fall weather is a chance to hide the spider and varicose veins on your legs that were on full display during the summer months.
You may think that the fall and winter seasons are a good time to forget about these unappealing blemishes, but it is actually the best time to start doing something about getting rid of them.
Some spider and varicose veins can be purely cosmetic and superficial, while others can be a sign of a deeper, more serious problem. Either way, they can all be evaluated and treated in an office setting with minimally or non-invasive techniques.
If you have spider or varicose veins, you may also be experiencing heaviness, tiredness, or achiness in your legs, particularly after standing or sitting for long periods of time. These are signs of a deeper problem with the valves in your veins, called venous insufficiency or “reflux”. The veins in the legs carry blood from the feet up to the heart and it is a one-way system because the valves prevent the blood from falling backward toward the feet. When the valves do not work well they become “leaky” and blood “refluxes” backward and pools in the legs causing the symptoms mentioned above and also causing spider and varicose veins to fill with blood and bulge out of the skin.
The good news is that you can eliminate these horrible symptoms and get rid of the unsightly spider and varicose veins and the best time to do that is now, in the fall and winter. The first step would be to undergo a special ultrasound of the veins in the legs looking for “leaky” valves and any blood clots. This is a painless test similar to the ultrasound that pregnant women undergo except that it is performed on your legs instead of your belly. Once the diagnosis is made, the initial treatment is wearing compression stockings during the day for a period of time. These can help manage the symptoms but do not repair the damaged veins.
Definitive treatments are performed in the office as an outpatient and involve injections or minimally invasive catheter-based procedures to seal off the diseased vein, or remove it altogether. This prevents blood from refluxing backwards the wrong-way and pooling in the legs. Over time, your body will turn the closed vein into scar tissue and nearby veins take over the normal one-way blood flow back to the heart. The symptoms AND the ugly veins will disappear.
The procedure takes approximately 15 -30 minutes to perform and you are able to walk out of the office immediately afterward and resume your normal daily activities. You may experience some aching for the next few hours that is usually very well controlled with over-the-counter Ibuprofen. Following the procedure, you will be required to wear compression stockings daily for 2 weeks and there may be some bruising of the skin that can take a few to several weeks to completely resolve.
Don’t wait until next spring to start thinking about your spider and varicose veins again. Why live another day with aching, swollen, tired, and heavy legs and feet? Get rid of your unwanted bulging veins and make your legs feel young and energetic again.