Sclerotherapy

Sclerotherapy is a safe, almost painless & well established treatment for red veins on the legs. It involves the superficial introduction of an extremely fine needle into the vein to be treated. The vein is then filled with a sclerosing liquid, which causes microscopic damage to the cells lining the vein. The body responds to this damage causing the vessel to shrink or be obliterated. Over several weeks the vein will fade away.

Your experience
Each session lasts approximately 30 minutes. The sclerosing agent used to inject has local anaesthetic properties & only the minimal discomfort of a tiny mosquito bite is usually experienced during the procedure. It is likely to be much less painful than any other injection. Sometimes small swabs may be taped over the injection sites, which can usually be removed soon afterwards. You may resume to normal activities immediately, but special hosiery may be worn for a week afterwards. For one or two weeks the veins will probably appear more prominent than before treatment & the injection sites may look like small insect bites. The veins will then usually begin to fade & continue to do so for up to eight weeks or longer. After 8 weeks any remaining veins can be re-treated to reduce them further.

Most patients see a 60-80% improvement in the appearance of the veins somewhere between one and four treatments.

What are the complications of Sclerotherapy?
This is a very safe well researched & established treatment but as with any medical treatment complications can rarely occur. Following treatment some patients may develop brown discolouration of the skin, which is due to the deposition of an iron-containing pigment (haemosiderin) in the skin. This pigment may take a while to fade away or very rarely be permanent.

Other much rarer complications include blood clots in the veins, allergic reactions to the sclerosing solution, severe inflammation & skin injury, which may lead to the development of a small ulcer & permanent scar. The area around the ankle is more likely to have complications than other areas for the above reasons pregnant or breast-feeding ladies will be asked to postpone treatment & patients taking certain medications (such as Anticoagulants) will be advised against Sclerotherapy.