What to Do About Painful Varicose Veins

Visible veins in your legs can be a cosmetic issue, or they could be a sign of something much more serious. If you have large, bulging, and painful veins on your lower legs, it’s time to seek help.

At Apex Endovascular, located in Fort Collins, Colorado, Dr. Shawn Ahmed provides vascular health support and interventional vascular care to treat varicose veins and relieve painful and unsightly symptoms.

The dangers of varicose veins

Unlike their cousins, the spider veins that show as a faint tracery just under the skin due to burst capillaries, varicose veins are larger veins that are failing, typically in your lower legs where blood pressure is highest. 

Varicose veins can be individually painful, and can also cause more generalized pain in your calves. Other symptoms include legs that feel heavy, ache miserably, or even itch uncontrollably. 

Painful varicose veins are often the result of chronic venous insufficiency, or CVI. The tiny one-way valves inside the veins in your legs are meant to keep blood moving in one direction only — back toward your heart. Valve failure means blood seeps back and pools behind the valve, and the vein starts to swell and bulge. 

When left untreated, CVI and varicose veins can lead to deep vein thrombosis, or DVT. The pooled blood clots, and if the clot breaks free and begins to travel, it’s called an embolism. If the embolism lands in your lungs, brain, or heart, you could suffer a fatal health event.   

Varicose vein treatments

Dr. Ahmed treats painful varicose veins with a variety of conservative treatments to help you avoid major surgical intervention. 

Venaseal™ 

Venaseal is a medical grade adhesive that can easily close damaged veins and divert blood flow to healthier blood vessels in the immediate area.

Radiofrequency vein ablation 

Using radiofrequency (RF) energy directed from the surface through the skin to heat the walls of the vein can create scar tissue that effectively closes the vein off.

Sclerotherapy 

Varithena® sclerotherapy is designed to treat small and medium varicose veins through injection of a foam irritant that damages and collapses the walls of the vein.  

Endovenous laser therapy (EVLT) 

A tiny fiber inserted through a nick in your skin directly into the vein applies laser energy to close off varicose veins. The difference between this and RF energy is that RF requires no entry point.

Phlebectomy 

Tiny punctures in the skin allow varicose veins to be removed in small sections while you’re comfortably resting under twilight (minimal) sedation.

Are you suffering from painful varicose veins? Give us a call at 970-508-8439, or book a consultation online today.