How painful is Varicose Vein Treatment?

In the second of this educational video series, Jilanne Rose talks about the pain involved in various Varicose Vein Treatments. In some cases it's negligible!

Transcript

The ease with which we can eliminate varicose veins depends solely on what type of underlying problems you have. That question can’t be easily answered until after a thorough evaluation including an ultrasound. The discomfort that comes along with treatments for varicose veins varies with the type of treatment that you have.

1) With sclerotherapy, which is the least invasive type of vein treatment that is used to treat smaller veins that are closer to the surface of the skin, the discomfort is only with the treatment and that involves injecting them with a solution that causes them to close off permanently. The discomfort is with the needle puncture and you have some slight itching similar to a mosquito bite for about an hour afterwards. Then you don’t have any discomfort with that treatment after that.

2) With a VenaSeal, which is the newest FDA approved procedure, it uses an adhesive to close the larger veins off. With that treatment you have the discomfort with the treatment itself. I have found after doing several of them, most patients do not have any discomfort post procedure, even a few hours after or a few days after.

3) The final treatment is thermal ablation and that uses heat energy to close the veins off from the inside. There are both lasers and radiofrequency closures. With those treatments the discomfort with the procedure comes in the fact that we surround these veins with numbing medicine in order to prevent you from feeling the discomfort of this type of energy. The numbing medicine lasts about four hours and as it wears off most people are stiff and sore for several days afterwards. The best thing you can do for that discomfort is to stay active. The more you are up and moving the less discomfort you will have.