Your guide to sclerotherapy

The treatment comprising of injecting ‘irritant’ solution into small varicose veins known as Sclerotherapy.  It has been a treatment used for varicose veins for many years.   Treating the small thread veins in the legs and on the cheeks, lt has been a more difficult problem until the advent of Fibroven.   The great advantage of this solution is that it is so safe to use.  Previous solutions have been effective in dealing with thread veins, but complications of treatment have included ulceration, making these treatments quite unacceptable.   Previous treatments have also include diathermy, which is specifically cauterising the small vessels, this is extremely time consuming, painful and in our experience not very effective.

For the treatment to be effective, it is necessary to inject the solution into the thread vein.  These veins are extremely small and can sometimes only be seen under magnification.   It therefore requires quite considerable skill on behalf of the operator to introduce a small needle into these vessels.  We use the smallest needle that is manufactured, this is a 30 gauge needle, and has the same diameter as a human hair.  When the needle is introduced into the vein, and the solution is injected, the solution can be seen tracking through the various branches of the vein, and there is an immediate blanching of the skin in the treated area.   Local pressure is then applied to this area and the treatment repeated for all the areas that require treatment. 

Fibroven sets up an immediate inflammatory reaction in the veins, so that they become more noticeable temporarily.  The veins take on a rather more livid colouration than was present previously.  In response to this inflammatory process, the veins then go into spasm and over the course of the following few weeks, atrophy (die) because of the difficulty in treating these tiny veins, it is generally necessary to repeat the treatment two to three times, or even more, depending on how many veins are present in the first instance.  To allow the process of atrophy/death to take place in the treated vessels, treatments are space one month apart.