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*Treatment results may vary
After working jobs that required me to stand for...
After working jobs that required me to stand for long periods of time, my legs would feel super heavy at the end of a shift. My large varicose veins on my calves were super tender-- it hurt to get a calf massage during a pedicure! My mom, who is in her 50s, has large vein disease. After experiencing some of the symptoms like restless legs, heaviness, and faintness after standing for a long time, I went into VeinClinics of America in Skokie, IL for a consultation. My legs honestly didn't look that bad; all my friends thought I was crazy for making an appointment, but a lot of people don't realize that varicose veins are genetic, and even if you only have a few little ones you can see on the surface, there are a lot more deep in your legs. The sooner you get them done the better!
The consultation was super easy. You stand on this platform and they ultrasound the deep veins in your legs and map out the large veins, and yup, just like my mom, I had large vein disease at 23. Dr. Shapiro is awesome. He has a great bedside manner and really knows what he is doing. I barely had any bruising or discomfort after my procedures. Anyway, I had to get both of my great saphenous veins treated with a laser. After the laser treatments, the doctor and nurse start injecting your smaller veins and the veins they work on get more superficial with each appointment. You have to go in for a lot of appointments to see results. There are literally miles of veins in your legs, and they have to take care of the deep ones first, because those are like the root of the problem.
I've had 3 laser treatments total. Each laser appointment is about an hour long. The nurse will scan the vein with the ultrasound, and Dr. Shapiro does the laser treatment that cauterizes the vein shut. You will have some pain, bruising, and swelling, but you are pretty much back to normal in 2-3 days. You are awake for the laser treatments, but they numb your leg with lidocaine. After a laser treatment, you come back to the office for an ultrasound to make sure the vein closed okay, and that you don't have any bloodclots.
After you complete the laser treatments, you do the midlevel injections with the nurse and the doctor. basically the nurse scans your veins with the ultrasound, and Dr. Shapiro finds the bad ones and injects these with a solution that irritates the vein and shuts it down. You might have like a red rash near injection sites for 24 hours after, but that's normal. You're going to have some bruising and swelling too, and the solution they inject gives you like a burning sensation, but it's nothing a little ibuprofen and benadryl won't fix. I went the gym right after my injections and it was fine.
The final injection round is those superficial "spider veins" everyone talks about. The nurse will give you a dozen or two little injections to shut down those tiny veins on the surface of your legs. This causes the worst bruising, but it goes away in 1-2 weeks. After you're all done with those treatments, you go back for a DUS scan with the nurse and the doctor, and he touches up any veins that didn't close all the way from the injections. Dr. Shapiro is also really good about removing any trapped blood in your veins, because the pressure can be a bit uncomfortable. Other doctors will just leave it in there and wait for your body to clear it away naturally, but Dr. Shapiro is great about aspirating it if it's causing you discomfort. His nursing staff is really nice, and Lana, who handles all the administrative stuff is very professional and great to work with.
Cost and Expectations: So I think I've probably spent about $1000 out of pocket over 3 months for all of my treatments, but my insurance covers 90% of it. Most people's insurance plans will cover 80% or 90% of the treatments because it is a legitimate medical issue that causes pain and discomfort, not just a cosmetic inconvenience like a lot of people think. If you're going to get your veins treated, you NEED to get an ultrasound. Don't go to these weird clinics on a Groupon that don't ultrasound you, they don't treat the source of the problem (those deep veins in your legs that you can't see that are causing all those little veins you can see). Treating varicose veins takes a lot of TIME too. I've been going once or twice a week for injections and ultrasounds for 3 months on my legs, and I am almost done for now. But don't go in for a couple appointments and expect your legs to look like they did 10 years ago. it takes like 2 weeks for your body to heal your veins after each treatment, so you need to be patient.
Overall: Definitely worth it. My legs look better, but most of all the FEEL better. I can now work 12 hours shifts 4 days straight on my feet without feeling faint and dizzy. My workouts are going a lot better too! Before my legs felt so heavy, long-distance cardio was almost impossible. I'm also way more comfortable sitting on my couch, in a car, sleeping-- no more restless legs!
The consultation was super easy. You stand on this platform and they ultrasound the deep veins in your legs and map out the large veins, and yup, just like my mom, I had large vein disease at 23. Dr. Shapiro is awesome. He has a great bedside manner and really knows what he is doing. I barely had any bruising or discomfort after my procedures. Anyway, I had to get both of my great saphenous veins treated with a laser. After the laser treatments, the doctor and nurse start injecting your smaller veins and the veins they work on get more superficial with each appointment. You have to go in for a lot of appointments to see results. There are literally miles of veins in your legs, and they have to take care of the deep ones first, because those are like the root of the problem.
I've had 3 laser treatments total. Each laser appointment is about an hour long. The nurse will scan the vein with the ultrasound, and Dr. Shapiro does the laser treatment that cauterizes the vein shut. You will have some pain, bruising, and swelling, but you are pretty much back to normal in 2-3 days. You are awake for the laser treatments, but they numb your leg with lidocaine. After a laser treatment, you come back to the office for an ultrasound to make sure the vein closed okay, and that you don't have any bloodclots.
After you complete the laser treatments, you do the midlevel injections with the nurse and the doctor. basically the nurse scans your veins with the ultrasound, and Dr. Shapiro finds the bad ones and injects these with a solution that irritates the vein and shuts it down. You might have like a red rash near injection sites for 24 hours after, but that's normal. You're going to have some bruising and swelling too, and the solution they inject gives you like a burning sensation, but it's nothing a little ibuprofen and benadryl won't fix. I went the gym right after my injections and it was fine.
The final injection round is those superficial "spider veins" everyone talks about. The nurse will give you a dozen or two little injections to shut down those tiny veins on the surface of your legs. This causes the worst bruising, but it goes away in 1-2 weeks. After you're all done with those treatments, you go back for a DUS scan with the nurse and the doctor, and he touches up any veins that didn't close all the way from the injections. Dr. Shapiro is also really good about removing any trapped blood in your veins, because the pressure can be a bit uncomfortable. Other doctors will just leave it in there and wait for your body to clear it away naturally, but Dr. Shapiro is great about aspirating it if it's causing you discomfort. His nursing staff is really nice, and Lana, who handles all the administrative stuff is very professional and great to work with.
Cost and Expectations: So I think I've probably spent about $1000 out of pocket over 3 months for all of my treatments, but my insurance covers 90% of it. Most people's insurance plans will cover 80% or 90% of the treatments because it is a legitimate medical issue that causes pain and discomfort, not just a cosmetic inconvenience like a lot of people think. If you're going to get your veins treated, you NEED to get an ultrasound. Don't go to these weird clinics on a Groupon that don't ultrasound you, they don't treat the source of the problem (those deep veins in your legs that you can't see that are causing all those little veins you can see). Treating varicose veins takes a lot of TIME too. I've been going once or twice a week for injections and ultrasounds for 3 months on my legs, and I am almost done for now. But don't go in for a couple appointments and expect your legs to look like they did 10 years ago. it takes like 2 weeks for your body to heal your veins after each treatment, so you need to be patient.
Overall: Definitely worth it. My legs look better, but most of all the FEEL better. I can now work 12 hours shifts 4 days straight on my feet without feeling faint and dizzy. My workouts are going a lot better too! Before my legs felt so heavy, long-distance cardio was almost impossible. I'm also way more comfortable sitting on my couch, in a car, sleeping-- no more restless legs!
Provider Review
Dr. Robert L. Shapiro