Skin Institute can help you combat all forms of venous disease, providing treatments for varicose veins or cosmetic forms such as spider veins, through to debilitating problems such as venous ulcers. If your veins are getting in the way of you living life to the fullest, we can help you take back control.
Veins are blood vessels that carry blood low in oxygen from the body back to the heart. In contrast, an artery is a vessel that carries blood that is high in oxygen away from the heart to the rest of the body.
Unlike arteries, veins do not have strong muscular walls and rely on your arm/leg muscles contracting to help push blood back up to the heart. In the legs, there are two vein systems that do this. The important deep vein system that lies within the muscle and carries 90% of the blood in the legs back to the heart and the superficial vein system lies on top of muscle and is an accessory system. One-way valves in the superficial veins keep the blood moving against gravity from the feet back towards the heart. When this process fails, the blood travels back down the leg, and it can lead to varicose veins and a variety of symptoms and signs.
Varicose veins are caused when the valves fail in the superficial veins. Blood then back-flows and pools in the veins. The pooling blood causes the veins to distend, swell and stretch causing further valve failure in the veins below. This can result in progression to visible and palpable varicose veins. Varicose veins can appear beneath the skin as bluish green lines and can be visibly raised, twisted or bulging, but sometimes they may not be seen or bulging, yet can still cause significant symptoms.
First, you can book in a FREE veins assessment at our Skin Institute clinics. Book online or phone 0800 834 673 / 0800 VEIN DR.
A Free Vein Assessment is a brief check with a member of our veins team to confirm or exclude varicose veins; to provide an estimate of costs for assessment and treatment. This does not include a consultation.
Alternatively, you can book a full consultation or comprehensive consultation with ultrasound mapping.
What happens during consultation?
If varicose veins is diagnosed, a treatment plan will be proposed based upon the history, examination and results of the duplex ultrasound map.
It is now recommended that patients DO NOT have surgical stripping to treat their varicose veins.
We offer:
Spider veins appear as red, purple or blue coloured ‘tree branches’ or ‘spider webs’ on the very surface
of the skin. Spider veins are often a cosmetic complaint and usually do not cause symptoms. However spider
veins can be a sign of underlying varicose veins and your practitioner may commonly advise a varicose vein
assessment prior to treatment to ensure best outcomes.
For spider vein treatment, we may suggest microsclerotherapy.
Modern non-surgical treatments for varicose veins are more successful and safer than surgery. Our patients are delighted to avoid surgical stripping and literally walk-in, walk-out from treatment with us.
