Varicose veins – just another curve ball thrown up by life

An article by admin    No Comments

Often, varicose veins are seen as “just one of those things”; an inevitable consequence of getting older. They don’t always cause any physical problems or discomfort, so why would you bother taking any action to get rid of them? Well, let’s be honest, a leg full of varicose veins doesn’t exactly look great. If you have a long-awaited beach holiday or a special event coming up, everyone wants to look their best. And that can include getting treatment to remove your varicose veins.

Some people will need them removed for medical reasons, but the procedure is still the same whether you need the treatment or if you elected to have it carried out. In the past, the only way to have varicose veins removed was through surgery, but there are much less invasive procedures available to patients these days.

What treatment is available?

Sclerotherapy involves the injection of a liquid or foam chemical into the damaged veins. Of course, this chemical is perfectly safe and will cause you no harm, but it does enough damage to the veins to force them to close, stopping the blood from pooling and causing the unsightly varicose veins we all recognise. However, there is some evidence to suggest that this varicose vein removal treatment only really works in the short-term and, unlike surgery, won’t stop varicose veins from returning.

Laser varicose vein treatment and radiofrequency ablation work in similar ways, by causing the walls of the damaged vein to heat up, collapse and close. In the first, the surgeon uses a fine laser which can actually penetrate inside even small varicose veins, while in the second the practitioner uses a high frequency electrical current to achieve the same effect.

One of the newest methods of removing varicose veins is transilluminated powered phlebectomy (TIPP), which is a very fancy way of saying that a doctor will use a special light and suction power to actually remove the damaged vein from its location, rather than just causing it to close but leaving it where it is. This is such a new technique that no-one really knows how effective it will be in the long-term, but as the damaged vein is removed entirely from the body, experts are hopeful that it may prove a viable non-invasive alternative to surgery.