Gogh Away, Big Purple Monsters!

Regardless of my youthful appearance, my heredity and work habits have caught up to me early on in life.  With fair skin and a touch of vanity, I have been scrutinizing my legs since college.  It started small, with only a small, red spider creeping out on my right thigh.  Then it spread, and more and more tiny red spiders were crawling all over my legs.  As soon as my brother-in-laws local Groupon, The Super Deal, featured vein treatment for $99, I jumped at the chance to try it.

The technology called VeinGogh sends energy pulses directly to the vein and coagulates it immediately.  Forever. Check out the videos HERE.  I went in at 7:30 a.m., filled out forms until 7:50, and changed into some 2X hospital shorts.  The cardiovascular doctor came in, chatted with me about spider veins and how [even young] people get them.  The biggest factors are heredity, time spent standing up, and oral contraceptives.  After performing an ultrasound on both legs to check for "leaks," my treatment began.  He started on one leg, holding an ice pack over the area to numb it, then began poking my legs with the needle.  The pricks were spaced about 1 mm apart down the length of the spider vein.  The meatier parts of my legs we not as sensitive as my thin skinned ankle areas.  I went in hoping to have my thigh area treated, and the doctor treated all of my spider veins!  This was certainly worth $99 and an actual vascular doctor (not a medi-day spa aesthetician) performing the procedure for an hour.

The pain, on a scale from 1-10 with 10 being the worst, was about a 3.  The longer the ice pack was on the area beforehand, the better.  I recommend taking an Advil before going just as a precaution.  There is no bleeding, and the welts seen right after the procedure turn to small "ant bite" bumps about an hour later.  The first day the "bites" were very swollen, but the pictures below are from Day 2.  The doctor said the redness will subside, along with the bumps, within three weeks.  Yea! Just in time for shorts weather!  So no more big, purple monsters (only temporary red ones)!