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[music] Hello, I’m Dr. Neal Schultz
[pause]
and welcome to DermTV.
Spider veins are also called broken capillaries and all they are is just
enlargements of the small blood vessels of the skin. They are enlarged so
much that you can actually see the red blood and that’s why you can see
these red squiggly lines. They occur because the wall of the blood vessel
weakens and, as it weakens, it stretches out and fills up with more blood.
Spider veins occur either on the face or on the legs. The most common cause
for spider veins on the legs is female hormones, estrogens either during
pregnancy or from birth control pills, heredity because you have spider
veins just because your mother had them. And also trauma, knocking into
your legs, athletics or women even tend to get them on the inside of their
knees where they cross their legs. On the face, the usual cause for spider
veins is either sun exposure or else female hormones. The best treatment
for spider veins depends on where they are. On your legs, the best
treatment is spider vein injections. Don’t let the word “injections” scare
you. They’re not painful. Because the needle, which is very tiny, is put
very high up in the skin, that’s where these blood vessels are, and it’s
almost above the level of the nerves. It may be one treatment or it may be
several treatments. After the treatment, you wear tight compression
stockings for three days and that helps the spider veins go away faster. If
the spider veins are on your face, the best treatment is lasers. I’m a
laser specialist and, despite that, I restrict laser treatments to the
face, not to the legs because, on the legs, laser treatments take longer to
heal, are more painful and more expensive but, on the face, they usually
work the first time, and they’re not painful on the face because the blood
vessels are higher up and they work very well. So, if you have spider
veins, they’re easily treated. You don’t have to tolerate them. See your
dermatologist for a treatment that will get rid of your spider veins.