Summer brings a lot of opportunity to put on beautiful dresses, shorts, and skirts. However, some people are filled with dread with the thought of shedding the trousers and showing the legs, where bluish-pinkish, swollen veins appear. However, this condition of thread veins on legs can be treated with modern technology and bring about a dramatic improvement on the appearance of the legs. If you or any of your family members are suffering from the same condition, then an in-depth understanding on the condition and the treatment procedures available would help you to choose the right treatment.
Thread veins – what these are
Thread veins are actually very tiny blood vessels that run near to the surface of the skin and look like purple, red, wiggly lines. These are also referred as broken veins or spider veins. Medically, these are known as telangiectasia.
Cause of thread veins
Till today, the doctors have not come up with any obvious cause behind this condition. These veins develop with age, when the blood vessels and the skin loses their elasticity. This can also happen during pregnancy, menopause, or any such hormonal change in women. This is the reason; women are more prone to thread veins than men. Sometimes, genetic tendency toward thread vein also gives rise to this condition. Some other secondary causes can be too much exposure to sun, wind or severe temperatures, radiotherapy or cortico-steroid medicines, job demanding prolonged standing, and such others – which actually aggravate this condition rather than actually causing it. Thread veins tend to multiply and become larger with time.
Thread veins treatment
There are several options to treat this condition. You can opt for sclerotherapy or laser therapy or a combination of both. Electrolysis is also used in some cases but this is not a very popular treatment, as laser therapy is available everywhere. In laser therapy, the doctor uses a tiny pulse of laser light for destroying the affected blood vessels. Various types of lasers are used. The best laser for thin, red veins is a pulsed dye laser, as the red veins lie close to the surface of the skin. But for the purple or blue veins, which lie deeper in the skin, laser with longer wavelength is required. So, YAG laser is used.
If the veins are bigger than 12mm, then instead of laser therepy, sclerotherapy is done. In this treatment, a tiny needle is inserted and a solution (scelerosant) is injected in the skin, which results in causing microscopic damage to the lining of the cells in vein. The affected vein then gradually sinks and ultimately disappears within 6 to 8 weeks. After both the treatments, you may have to wear compression stockings for several weeks, as advised by the doctor.
After effects of treatment
After sclerotherapy, you might find that the injection sites appearing like insect bites. The area might bear some bruises also, in addition to mild itching. However, after a week, the veins would begin to fade and completely disappear after 8 weeks. However, it might take a bit longer, if the veins are bigger in size.
