You’re tired of dealing with veins that are unsightly and/or uncomfortable, and you’re anxious to move forward with sclerotherapy. As a frontline treatment for both varicose and spider veins, sclerotherapy has an excellent track record for garnering great results, but you want to know more about what to expect after this quick-and-easy procedure.
To shed some light, triple board-certified interventional cardiologist Dr. Farhad Aduli and the team here at Louisiana Heart and Vascular present a brief look at what you should know about life after sclerotherapy.
The first thing to understand about sclerotherapy is that it’s quick and easy. During sclerotherapy, we simply inject an agent into the targeted veins, which causes them to collapse and close off.
When you come in, we first make you comfortable in our treatment room, and we use a topical numbing agent before we administer the sclerotherapy injections.
Once you’re ready, we quickly inject your veins, and you’re free to get on with your day directly afterward.
You may experience some side effects after your sclerotherapy, but they’re fairly minor and mostly short-lived. If anything, the lingering effects may include some redness and/or soreness at the site of the injections, which you can address with over-the-counter medications and ice.
As your body processes the collapsed veins, it encourages blood to reroute itself to healthier vessels. You can help support your veins during this time by wearing compression stockings, which are designed to help push blood back up to the heart.
In addition to giving your veins a little extra support, it’s also important to keep moving. In most cases, varicose and spider veins in your legs are due to chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), which affects 1 in 20 people.
With CVI, the valves in the veins in your legs are weak and don’t close all the way, which allows blood to spill backward and pool, which can lead to varicose veins. A great way to address CVI is to strengthen your calf muscles, which can help your valves function better.
So, if you want to avoid the return of varicose and spider veins in your legs after your sclerotherapy treatments, do what you can to help blood flow up and out of your legs through compression and exercise.
It will take your body a few weeks, or a few months, to fully process and reabsorb the treated veins, so it’s important that you practice patience after your sclerotherapy. Rest assured, this patience will be rewarded as the problematic veins start to fade away from the surface, leaving you with smooth legs again.
If you have more questions about what to expect after your sclerotherapy treatments, book an appointment online or over the phone with Louisiana Heart and Vascular today. We’re located in Covington and Franklinton, Louisiana, and we also serve patients from Mandeville, Hammond, and Slidell.
