How long until the discoloration is gone after vein treatment?

Thank you for your question. Part of the healing process after sclerotherapy is enduring a short period when the treated veins become more visible than they were before. This is the vein safely clotting before it dies and falls away from the surface of your skin. The discoloration usually fades within 10 to 14 days. Good luck!
 

The discoloration can last for 2 months to 12 months.  If they last longer than that, get a treatment or two with a tattoo laser, and they fade very fast after that.

In our 25 year experience in over 20,000 patients, 90% of pigmentation after sclerotherapy, if it ever occurs will resolve within 6 months and the other 10% within 1 year. If it is stubborn, we recommend the q-switched ruby laser which vaporizes out the brown iron staining.

Hi Zhi.  It can be years.  We have had patients come to us regarding a condition called "hemosiderin staining" 1-3 years after their vein injections.  This condition causes the are around the injection site to "brown" or bruise semi-permanently.  

The good news is that we do have the ability with q-switched lasers to break up this pigment.  Finally, one of the main reasons our olive or dark skinned patients opt for laser treatments rather than injections for their veins is that they are able to avoid the discoloration issue altogether.

In almost 100% of patients, any discoloration in skin following sclerotherapy spontaneously resolves within a year (most will resolve sooner than that). This pigment is the result of hemosiderin (a breakdown product of red blood cells) that has been deposited in the tissue while the body is resorbing the treated blood vessels. Rest assured that this pigment will resolve. One way to minimize the potential for this pigment to occur in the first place is to follow-up with your physician approximately two weeks after your sclerotherapy visit. At that time, any coagulum (clotted blood) that have formed following the injections can be drained by your doctor (thus preventing breakdown products from those red blood cells from being deposited into nearby tissue and causing transient discoloration).

Staining or hyperpigmentation after sclerotherapy sometimes occurs after treating varicose veins.  In our 20 year experience with thousands of patients, staining can take up to 12-18 months to resolve.  It is also dependent on how bad your underlying venous disease is.  If you already had browning of the leg skin which indicates advanced venous disease, then it may not resolve.
We have had less staining with Asclera than with Sotradecol, so be sure to ask your doctor what they are using to treat your veins.  We have also had success in treating post-sclerotherapy discoloration with our Picoway laser.
As always, vein care should only be performed under the care of a board certified surgeon who specializes in phlebology for the best results!  Good luck!

With Vein treatments, you might experience some discolored skin in the areas that have been treated, but this fades in 10-14 days. It’s extremely important that you see a highly trained dermatologist—to have these procedures done. In inexperienced hands, lasers, in particular, can cause burns and scars on the skin.

Hyperpigmentation can occur after treatments for venous disease, whether it is from sclerotherapy or topical laser and can be minimized with the use of compression garments after treatment and the use of topical cream called Scleroquin plus and Sclerovase. We advise our patients to use the former in the evening and Sclerovase in the morning. Scler-X is also recommended. This post-inflammatory hyperpigmentataion relief complex is also recommended for 3 months. Another important component is avoidance of sun exposure. See the link below. 

Greeting Zhi~

Brown discoloration or staining of the skin following vein treatment (hemosiderin staining) is not uncommon unfortunately.  It can last any where from months to years until it spontaneously resolves.  We have not found any really effective treatments to help speed the process.  If it is just bruising or remnants of vessels that need to resolve, that can take weeks to even months as well.

Good luck

This is a great question and a very common problem for people undergoing injection treatment.  The hyperpigmentation (dark colour) can stay in your skin for a few years or even longer.  It is a result of the iron in the blood being absorbed by the skin after treatment.  Time is the best cure but you have to be very patient.

Best of luck.