That headline has the sound of a really campy horror movie about a kid who befriends lots of creepy spiders. If you’re old enough, think Ben with spiders instead of rats.
Actually, we’re far more pedestrian than that. Sometimes our patients at Miami Plastic Surgery® have asked us that very question posed in the headline. But it’s about those purple, red, and blue clusters of squiggly lines on their legs — spider veins.
“If I don’t have you all do anything about my spider veins, will they just go away on their own?” they’ve asked.
Short answer. No. Yes, you can make changes in your lifestyle, such as more walking and less standing or sitting, and that may preclude the development of new spider veins. But once they have formed their curly, squiggly selves the only way to get rid of them is to see us at Miami Plastic Surgery® where we can put sclerotherapy to work on making them go away.
Why do I have spider veins?
Arteries take oxygenated blood from the heart and lungs and deliver it to the body. The veins are the roadways back home to the heart. And the legs veins don’t have an easy job — they’re fighting gravity the whole way. As we age, the strength of the support tissues and even of the veins themselves can diminish. This can cause the blood to back up and pool in spots. This shows itself in spider and varicose veins. Because spider veins are just below the surface of the skin, they are very visible.
How can I get rid of them?
Sclerotherapy is nothing new. It was first used in the 1930s to make unwanted veins close up and go away. At Miami Plastic Surgery® we’ve used both lasers and sclerotherapy on spider veins, but we feel that sclerotherapy is a better option on the legs.
In sclerotherapy, we inject a special sclerosant agent directly into the vein in question. Today, we use new solutions that have replaced saline as the sclerosant agent. These newer agents are much more effective in starving the vein of protein, collapsing them very quickly. Plus, these newer agents also have an anesthetic effect to help keep the patient comfortable. After the veins are injected and collapse, the body goes about absorbing them over the next couple of months, but they immediately become nearly invisible after they collapse. Any blood that ran through the vein is routed to an adjacent vein.
It’s really a simple, easy-to-take treatment.
What happens afterward?
After your treatment, we put you in compression stockings that you’ll wear for two weeks during your waking hours. This compression improves your results, so most veins need only one injection to disappear.
Spring’s a great time to come see us at Miami Plastic Surgery® to have us get rid of those obnoxious spider veins. Then your legs will be ready for summertime beach life. Call us at 305.595.2969 to schedule your sclerotherapy session.