San Diego Sclerotherapy doctors

     I have my patients wear the compression stockings for a full week after sclerotherapy.

     Wearing compression stockings after having sclerotherapy is actually imperative to getting the best results possible from your treatment. Research studies have shown this to be the case.

     Having the vein walls in close contact with each other (i.e. when being compressed by the stockings) is important because the solution that is injected into the veins ("sclerosant") is better able to act directly on the lining of those walls, and this is what ultimately causes your body to break down and absorb those veins. If you do not wear the stockings, those veins will continue to have excess blood pooling in them, which dilutes the sclerosant, thus preventing it from having as much contact with the vein walls as possible.

    Compression stockings have what is called "graduated" compression. This means that they offer more pressure to the ankle/lower leg than they do to the thigh (the pressure applied by the stockings gradually decreases as you move up from the ankle to the thigh). This essentially helps get blood from the lower legs back up to the heart (working against the force of gravity).

   Even if you haven't had sclerotherapy, it's not a bad idea to wear compression stockings. . . especially if you have a job that requires you to be standing for long periods of time. You want to prevent gravity from causing excess blood to pool in the veins of your lower legs because, over time, this "pooling of blood" will result in stretching of the walls of your veins. As the walls are stretched out with excess blood, the valves within the veins (which prevent the backflow of blood) do not work as well; the blood then has a harder time making it back up to the heart. Thus, the more "help" you get to push the blood upwards (i.e. from pressure applied externally via compression stockings), the less likely you are to get varicose veins. If you already have varicose veins, wearing compression stockings during the day can help prevent them from getting worse.

   Thus, if you are planning on having sclerotherapy (a great treatment, by the way), I strongly encourage you to wear compression stockings. . . especially during the few days immediately following the procedure.  

  There is no contraindication for sclerotherapy in diabetic patients. I use foam sodium tetradecyl sulfate and glycerin. Polidocanol is also effective and fine for diabetics.

  Having sclerotherapy is helpful - especially in diabetics - since your leg veins will continue to dilate over time (with advancing age, weight gain, inactivity, etc.). With more and more dilation of your leg veins, you can start to experience swelling (and sometimes a "ruddy" skin discoloration) in your lower legs/ankles. By treating the veins, you can prevent/minimize this swelling. Furthermore, diabetics can develop skin breakdown/ulcers from prolonged tissue swelling ("venous stasis" in medical terminology). Diabetics area also more prone to infections (even skin infections). Any time the skin barrier is compromised - for example, with a diabetic ulcer - a person is more likely to develop an infection in that tissue. Ulcers/skin infections can unfortunately sometimes lead to the need for amputations.

 Thus, anything you can do to prevent this blood pooling in the lower legs and subsequent tissue swelling (by treating the veins) is going to be beneficial to you in the long run.