Sclerotherapy is a common varicose vein treatment. Watch this video for an easy breakdown of the procedure by vascular surgeon Dr. Steve Elias.
Sclerotherapy is a technique of injecting some type of medicine or chemical into veins to cause the veins to slowly shrink over time. What you're doing is, you're causing a controlled inflammation of the veins. The veins react to inflammation by shrinking and scouring down, so it's a process.
It is not something that you do and then the next day the things disappear. Takes at least six weeks up to a few months to see the full effect.
Steve Elias, MD, is a vascular surgeon in the Columbia University Department of Surgery.
View Profile