A Comprehensive Guide to Sclerotherapy in Texas

Most patients assume that sclerotherapy is the ideal treatment option for spider veins. However, that’s not always true, despite what you may glean from online sources. Sure, sclerotherapy is the best treatment for spider veins, but it’s not a comprehensive treatment — not by a long shot. You see, spider veins are a physical and visible manifestation of a medical problem that runs a lot deeper — venous insufficiency.

Spider veins occur when excessive blood accumulates in your leg veins, making them appear on the surface of the skin. However, blood accumulation in the veins often occurs when the valves in one of your deeper veins collapse, making blood flow backward. If you don’t treat the underlying vein disease responsible for the spider veins, you’ll simply have a relapse, i.e., your spider veins will return.

Sclerotherapy might be the best treatment for the visible spider veins, but it’s not the only treatment necessary. And that brings us to the first step in your sclerotherapy treatment plan — the consultation. When you schedule an appointment with a reputable vein center, the vein doctor examines your spider veins to look for signs of underlying vein disease.

The vein doctor reviews your medical history, discusses your family’s history with vein disease, and examines your leg veins. They also ask about your symptoms to determine if you have restless leg syndrome, leg heaviness, frequent leg cramps, or other symptoms commonly associated with vein disease. If you want to kickstart the process, please schedule an appointment with our exceptional vein doctors today.

This step is only necessary for those with underlying venous insufficiency. The vein doctor will start your treatment with radiofrequency ablation, endovenous laser ablation, or VenaSeal. These vein treatments have the same underlying goals — close the diseased saphenous vein to reroute the accumulated blood to healthier leg veins. But they pursue this goal through various means, including thermal energy, laser energy, or medical adhesives.

Radiofrequency ablation involves delivering thermal energy into the diseased saphenous vein via a catheter driven through an incision on the skin’s surface. Endovenous laser ablation involves delivering laser energy into the diseased saphenous vein via a laser fiber through an incision on the skin’s surface. And VenaSeal involves injecting a medical-grade adhesive into the diseased vein under ultrasound guidance.

Regardless of the method, the results are similar. The diseased vein shuts down, and the accumulated blood reroutes to healthier leg veins, restoring effective blood circulation to the heart. Over time, the diseased vein hardens and gets absorbed by the body. With that, you no longer have underlying vein disease and can treat the superficial varicose veins and spider veins.

Sclerotherapy is the best spider vein treatment available. Once you go through the primary treatment for underlying vein disease, or if you don’t have vein disease at all, you become an eligible candidate for sclerotherapy treatments. The sclerotherapy treatment involves injecting a sclerosing solution into the spider veins to fuse their walls. The sclerosing solution fuses the spider veins’ walls, turning them into hardened tissues absorbed by the body.

Sclerotherapy is a painless and comfortable procedure performed using fine needles. The vein doctor also applies topical anesthesia to ensure a comfortable experience. The treatment takes less than 30 minutes and involves no downtime. While sclerotherapy itself isn’t covered by insurance plans, you can generally get some coverage if it’s a part of your comprehensive vein treatment plan for underlying venous insufficiency.

Sclerotherapy doesn’t produce immediate results. However, you’ll start seeing the results in a few weeks as the hardened spider veins get absorbed by the body and fade away from the surface of the skin. Some people even need 2 to 4 sclerotherapy treatments for optimal results. Your vein doctor will discuss the ideal treatment schedule and frequency for your specific needs.

After the entire vein treatment process, the vein doctor will discuss your post-treatment recovery and aftercare guidelines. You don’t have to take any time off from work, but you should avoid heavy workouts for a few days. You must also wear compression stockings for a few weeks to ensure optimal blood circulation in your leg veins. If you follow all of the vein doctors’ guidelines, you’ll recover without harsh side effects or complications.

Vein Treatment Clinic provides highly-effective and comprehensive sclerotherapy and vein treatments for patients all over Texas. Our state-of-the-art medical center is located in Uptown Houston, a short drive from the Galleria shopping mall. For more information, please schedule an appointment with our vein doctor today.