What are Thread Veins?
Thread veins are small veins or capillary clusters that are within the skin itself. They can be red, purple or blue and are also known as spider veins, capillary veins and telangectasia. They can occur over several parts of the body, but are commonly found in the legs.
Thread veins are not varicose veins, but about 50% of people with them have underlying varicose veins; and about 90% have other veins "feeding" them.

Are they serious?
No - fortunately thread veins themselves are not a health risk. Although they can ache, especially on standing for some time, they are one of the only vein problems of the legs that are mainly of cosmetic concern.

Who gets them?
About 50% of adult females get thread veins, and they worsen with age. There are no figures as to how many men have them, but we are seeing progressively more males attending for treatment of their thread veins.

What do I do about my thread veins?
The most important thing in successful thread vein treatment is finding out if there is an underlying feeding vein or varicose vein. We know that about 90% of people do have such feeding veins and if the thread veins are treated without addressing the underlying veins first, they will reappear with time.

How can one tell if there are feeding veins or underlying varicose veins?
Vein Duplex Ultrasonography, using a high resolution machine, can show feeding and underlying veins. Once found we can then plan treatments such as Duplex Guided Injection Sclerotherapy or VNUS Closure, depending on the size of the vein - sclerotherapy is only effective in very small veins.

How successful is treatment?
Treatment of the thread veins themselves is usually by Micro-injection Sclerotherapy, although Laser may be recommended in certain cases. There is no perfect result, but 80% of our patients get a very good result, 15% a fair improvement and 5% minimal improvement or maybe even an area of skin stain (red-brown - usually clears after a year or so) or a small ulcer that will heal, but with a scar.