Prominent veins in your legs can look very unsightly, and veined legs have an ageing effect. Not so long ago treatments were a lot more invasive and painful than they are these days. Treatments for leg veins have progressed a great deal in recent years, and now it’s extremely difficult to get leg vein treatment on the NHS. The old fashioned surgical method of stripping veins has been replaced by a number of extremely effective non-surgical leg vein treatments.
The type, position and size of the leg veins that are troubling you will determine the way we treat them. You might need to have a venous ultrasound, something that will give us a much better picture of what’s required and helps us to recommend the relevant treatment for the size of your particular veins.
Red leg veins are often mistaken for small varicose veins, but they’re not the same thing. They’re harmless and superficial, but sometimes they appear near deeper veins that cause pressure, producing an unsightly cluster of veins. These can also be caused by trauma to your legs, i.e. injuries like falls. In these cases red leg veins are fairly simple to treat using one of the following methods:
Also used to treat skin tags and milia, Veinwave is a medically-acclaimed technology that safely removes facial red veins and leg red veins.
The technology is based on a process called ‘thermocoagulation’, which involves a tiny insulated needle no bigger than an acupuncture needle introduced superficially to the red vein or veins to remove them.
Whether or not we recommend sclerotherapy depends on the size and width of the vein needing treatment. Unlike red spider veins, larger veins are more suitable for this treatment.
We inject the veins with a solution called Fibrovein. This disturbs the internal lining of the vein, causing the blood to clot inside. Over time your body will destroy the vein and it will disappear naturally. The concentration of the solution we use depends on the size of the vein being treated.
This method depends on the width of the vein and, also like sclerotherapy, uses a mixture of air and liquid. This method demands you wear a support garment for 7-10 days afterwards, to contain the foam in the vein. Over time the vein will disappear completely.
Sometimes we recommend foam injections, a procedure involving making small volumes of Fibrovein solution into a foam. In this form it is really effective for treating larger underlying veins, those that can’t be treated with conventional Sclerotherapy.
