The most typical and successful treatment for getting rid of surfaced red and blue veins on the legs is sclerotherapy, a procedure that involves injecting a solution into the veins of the leg or thigh that destroys the vessel’s lining. The solution causes the walls of the veins to collapse, destroying the source of the problem. (Source: Aesthetic Surgery Journal, September-October 2008, pages 573-583.)
One solution used for sclerotherapy is polidocanol (aethoxysclerol), which was originally developed as a local anesthetic. Polidocanol turned out to be undesirable as an anesthetic because it shut down veins wherever it was injected, but it was perfect for sclerotherapy. It is relatively painless. It is also one of the few drugs you can inject into the skin that doesn’t leak into the other veins, so it affects only the vein it is injected into. That means there is little to no risk associated with this treatment. Your doctor will want to choose the best option for your condition, but make sure he or she is familiar and skilled with all available options. For more serious, larger varicose veins, a more potent choice is sotradecol. It is similar to polidocanol, but sotradecol can cause sores (ulcers) if it leaks.
Deciding whether to choose laser removal of surfaced veins or sclerotherapy may not be a simple matter. The method the physician prefers is usually what makes the difference and not the methodology as such. Both lasers and sclerotherapy have a place in treating small leg veins. A study in Lasers in Surgery and Medicine (2002, volume 30, issue 2, pages 154-159) compared “a long pulsed Nd:YAG laser with contact cooling to sclerotherapy for treating
small diameter leg veins by evaluating objective and subjective clinical effects________ Patient
surveys show 35% preferred laser and 45% chose sclerotherapy.” Other research has shown sclerotherapy has the edge (Source: Dermatologic Surgery, August 2002, pages 694-697).
Aside from the type of treatment, it is important to determine the underlying cause of a problem to prevent recurrences. A surfaced vein is distended and visible because it is connected to a high-pressure system that has gone wrong. You can visualize what happens with these surfaced veins as being similar to the experience of driving along and all of a sudden finding heavy traffic backed up several miles from the actual problem.
When veins work normally, they collect blood from tissues and pump it around the body in an even flow, without hitches, stops, or abrupt starts. When things go wrong, the blood can actually go in the wrong direction or all of sudden get blocked. This occurs because the valves in the vein no longer function properly or the blood volume in the vein increases (often because of trauma); often both conditions occur together and are interrelated.
This misdirected blood flow can build up pressure, creating painful swelling and protrusions. A vein that becomes permanently dilated is called a varicose vein. Theoretically, any vein can develop varicosity, but certain veins, such as those in the legs, are more likely to. This can be due to an injury, to pregnancy hormones (which make the valves in the veins soft and floppy, causing damage), to being overweight, or just to bad veins. And the problem can spread from one bad vein to others (sort of like a bad traffic jam spreading to nearby roads).