Q: What is spider vein therapy and can you please tell me more about it?

A: The medical term for it is called sclerotherapy. It has been in use in one form or another for over a 150 years now to treat various vein problems. It is a procedure administered by the doctor whom injects a solution into the problem vein which causes it to shrink off and fade away over the following weeks.

Does it work?
Spider vein therapy is one of the oldest and most widely used treatments for this condition. It is usually very effective for most many people. What I like about it is the idea that the problem veins are being targeted directly and injected with the solution.

Advantages
In addition to being a time-test successful method, it is also favored because it is usually a relatively quick procedure (10 to 45 minutes) and because it doesn’t use any fancy technologies, it’s often very affordable.

Disadvantages
Like everything in life, when there are pros there are also cons. As far as effectiveness and cost, most people can’t complain. But one concern I had while researching spider vein therapy was that there have allegedly been recent reports which have shown that some of the solution which is injected quickly flows to other vital organs like the brain, heart, and lungs.

Further studies need to be done to determine whether or not this poses any danger (it may very well not) but to me common sense says it may be dangerous. After all, it is a corrosive substance that the doctor is putting into our bodies and I am scared of that going into my brain. I was a big fan of this method before, but after reading that, I think I will stick with my laser spider vein removal and spider vein cream.