By Tiffany White 
Post Sponsored by Clark Memorial Hospital Vein Center 

Marla Beeler, MSN, FNP, APRN Photos by Melissa Donald

Concealing your spider veins may be a pain, but permanently removing them is simple and painless. Marla Beeler, MSN, FNP, APRN with the Clark Physician Group Thoracic and Vascular Surgery Center, utilizes a vein removal treatment called sclerotherapy on her clients. Using a small gauge needle, Beeler injects asclera, a sclerosing agent, into the spider veins, which scars the vein better than saline. “The vein doesn’t have the reaction to saline, because saline is like saltwater. It is less of an irritant to the vein, but the whole goal is to irritate the vein so that it scars off,” Beeler says. The body absorbs the blood vessel and uses the healthy blood vessels instead, which resolves the spider vein. Sclerotherapy, which is done at the surgery center, takes an hour to complete for both legs.

After the injection, clients usually feel slight burning, itching, and stinging, but those side effects only last for a few seconds. No recovery time is needed, and clients are encouraged to stay active after the treatment. “We want you to be up on your feet to keep the blood and asclera in your veins so that the scarring happens,” she says.

Marla Beeler, MSN, FNP, APRN preparing to inject asclera, a sclerosing agent, into the spider veins.

The spider veins disappear within 8-12 weeks, but sometimes clients must return for touch-ups, depending on the size of the vein. “The size of the vein is usually more a matter of what we call matting, which looks like a spider,” Beeler says. “It has a center and fingers that come out. Those are the ones that sometime require more than one treatment, because the fingers are so small. Sometimes we have to do touch-ups if they are large.” The cost for the first treatment vial is $120 and $65 thereafter. Beeler can do a maximum of five vials per setting but says most people need between two and four vials.

Are you interested in finding out if sclerotherapy is right for you? Visit their website or call them today at 800.424.DOCS