Varicose veins are swollen, twisted and enlarged veins that commonly occur in the legs, but can affect other parts of the body as well. While not considered a serious medical condition, they can cause pain and discomfort and left untreated may progress to ulcers on the lower legs or cause bleeding from the leg.
Normally, valves in your veins keep your blood flowing up toward the heart, so the blood does not collect in one place. Patients with symptomatic varicose veins frequently have failure of these valves. That valve failure results in increased pressure in the veins of the legs and that pressure is what causes normal veins to dilate into varicose veins. More importantly these abnormal veins can cause the symptoms described above.
Our vascular surgeons provide varicose vein evaluation and treatment using all of the most state-of-the-art techniques customized to the needs and venous disease of each patient.
PCI Vascular Surgery offers the following varicose vein treatments. For maximum convenience all diagnostic testing and treatments are performed at PCI Vascular Surgery:
- Thermal Ablation – During a thermal ablation procedure, your physician inserts a tiny fiber into the diseased vein via a catheter. The catheter then uses either microwave energy or laser to heat and destroy the inner walls of the vein and seal it closed. One closed, varicose veins tend to decompress and are no longer visible as symptoms resolve.
- Cyanoacrylate or VenaSeal™ - With Venaseal medical glue is used instead of heat to close off the vein. This eliminates the diseased vein, which is then absorbed by the body over the course of a few weeks.
- Sclerotherapy – One of the most common treatments for varicose veins, sclerotherapy involves injecting a saline or chemical solution into the varicose veins. Once constricted, they no longer carry blood, collapse and vanish, and other healthy veins take over.
- Ambulatory Phlebectomy/ Microphlebectomy – larger varicose veins are partially removed through tiny 2-3 mm incisions. Generally this technique does not require any stitches.