Self-Evaluation
Spider veins are thin, at less than a millimeter in diameter, and just like their name implies, they look like red, blue, or purple spider webs. Clusters can be found in the legs or on the face, but are especially common around the ankles, and they are associated with a slight discomfort, itching, or burning. Many people tend to think that all of these signs and symptoms are just normal experiences with aging, which is true if you see a few spider veins here and there, but significant portions of the skin being covered with spider veins is definitely indicative of an underlying vein disease. The good news is, vein diseases such as venous insufficiency and spider veins can be treated!
Vein disease can cause heaviness or aching, especially towards the end of the day, when you have been up and about, allowing more blood to make its way down to the legs. This also leads to leg fatigue and swelling in the feet or ankles. If you are starting to see spider veins on your lower limbs or have been experiencing aching or tired legs, you may be dealing with a vein disease and should look for a “spider vein treatment clinic near me California” to seek treatment from a vein doctor in the San Diego area.
Evaluation at a Vein Center
It is important to pay attention to the signs and symptoms you are experiencing, then communicate with a spider vein treatment center to find a specialist in venous medicine. At a spider vein treatment clinic, the vein doctor will check both your large and small saphenous veins for issues with the valves, which can lead to blood flow in the wrong direction, known as venous reflux or insufficiency. After this evaluation, the vein doctor will check for the symptoms that you may not have originally mentioned during your appointment (such as itchy or burning veins, aching legs, swelling, etc.) to make sure that insurance will cover the costs for a doctor-recommended treatment plan.
After the initial evaluation at the vein clinic, the vein doctor will seal the saphenous veins, which are the underlying veins for most blood flow problems. Although treatment for spider veins used to be exclusively through surgical procedures, medical innovation has brought us to a time in which we can treat varicose veins and spider veins through minimally-invasive treatments such as VenaSeal or Radiofrequency Ablation. These are low-risk, take less than an hour to perform, and have no recovery time after leaving the vein center.
VenaSeal is a vein adhesive that requires no local anesthetic and is used to close the saphenous vein and reroute the blood automatically through the healthy veins in your legs. Radiofrequency ablation starts with the administration of a local anesthetic, followed by the insertion of a catheter into the unhealthy vein using an ultrasound, which is then activated to deliver thermal energy to the walls of the vein to close them down.
Be sure to avoid undergoing endovenous laser ablation, which uses a laser to cause an inflammatory reaction in the vein that creates a seal to eventually reroute blood through other healthy veins. It may sound like a quick fix, but this treatment actually has a week-long recovery time after a visit to the vein clinic, during which you would have to wear a compression stocking, and there is a lot more pain and discomfort resulting from this procedure than the previous treatments mentioned.
Veins throughout the body have one-way valves that ensure that blood makes its way to the heart but doesn’t flow back out to the limbs, but when the valves in the veins become leaky, they cause venous reflux. As described above, vein doctors close the saphenous veins then reroute the blood through healthier veins to restore the proper direction of blood flow and fix the deeper issue.
After this initial treatment, the next step is to improve the surface-level appearance of the spider veins. The vein doctor will use sclerotherapy, a non-surgical minimally-invasive treatment that uses tiny needles to inject medicine that improves the appearance of spider veins in just one month. Just like the other treatments, the whole procedure takes less than 30 minutes and causes little to no discomfort. You can return home or to work after your appointment at a vein treatment clinic because there is no anesthesia or recovery time involved.
If you are looking for a “spider vein treatment clinic near me California” with doctors you can trust, the San Diego Vein Treatment Clinic with Dr. Billy Schoenfield and Dr. Carly Guthrie is the place for you! They are both Harvard-trained and double board-certified vein doctors who are highly experienced and well-versed in vein care. They are kind and approachable, and prioritize patient care above all else, as they strive to provide everyone who sets foot in their vein treatment center with a pleasant visit.
Our clinic in San Diego is located in a beautiful neighborhood called La Jolla, near the Torry Pines Beach State Park and Westfield UTC Shopping Center. End your search for a “spider vein treatment clinic near me California” and set up an appointment to come visit us! You can call our office, where a friendly staff member would be happy to speak with you, or book an appointment online.