Have you noticed visible, blue-ish veins beneath the skin of your legs, especially around your thigh or behind your knee? Do you feel frustrated to have to adjust your fashion and clothing options just to cover up these veins on your legs?

These are actually spider veins, a common problem that often causes trouble for people who want to wear shorts or skirts, but are conscious about the veins on the legs being visible.

But, what exactly are those veins on your legs? Where do they come from?

What spider veins actually are

Spider veins are dilated veins beneath the skin that often appear at our lower body.

You may also find spider veins on your face, neck, or body. They can appear as red, purple, green, or blue coloured visible veins beneath the skin, and can vary from light coloured veins to very visible dark coloured veins.

Spider veins are small and twisted, and are usually flat beneath the surface of the skin. If you find your veins protruding or swollen, they may be varicose veins instead of spider veins, and require a different treatment method from spider veins.

*Editor's note: It is best to get a precise diagnosis from the doctor to find out what type of visible veins you have on your skin. To do that, you can always call us at +6011-22882299, WhatsApp us here, or book an appointment with Dr Loo here!

Where spider veins come from

Spider veins are mainly caused by prolonged standing.

Do you stand for long period of time every day? Did you know that this is one of the main causes of spider veins? When you stand, your blood flow naturally moves downwards of your body due to our earth's gravity pull. This causes our blood to pool up in our leg veins and increases the pressure within these veins.

Like how our tight clothes stretch over time after constantly forcing it to fit a body bigger than itself, our veins also become enlarged due to the repeated pooling up of the blood due to standing for long periods of time.

An increase in the weight at our abdominal part can also cause the appearance of spider veins through the increased abdominal pressure applied on the legs. This is common during pregnancy or among people who are overweight. The greater the weight of the upper body, the higher the pressure on veins on our lower body!

How spider veins affect us

Spider veins can be an annoyance in our daily life.

Even though spider veins generally don't bring any health concerns or danger, they can be be annoying and cause problems for us in our daily life.

One such problem is making us conscious about ourselves when going through our wardrobe selection. How many times have you chosen not to wear that skirt or shorts, or chosen to go for long bottoms during sports just so that you don't expose the veins on your legs?

Some of us also choose to wear high stockings to cover up the spider veins on our legs, or applying makeup powder to cover them up.

Which is why we should know that...

Spider veins can be treated

To get rid of spider veins safely and effectively, laser treatments are the best option.

Laser treatment is the quickest and most effective method to get rid of spider veins safely. A skin specialist doctor can help you through this process, which uses the laser energy from the vascular laser to heat up the blood vessels that cause the spider veins.

Spider veins usually start to disappear immediately after a laser treatments, and can disappear completely with repeated treatments at monthly intervals.

To make the treatments more effective, you can also wear compression stockings to prevent the pooling of blood at our lower body, especially when walking or standing. This also helps prevent recurrence of spider veins after the treatment.

However, always be vigilant and watch out for suspicious treatments that claim to be able to remove spider veins without proper treatments! For example, although some may recommend topical applications to apply on the site of spider veins, they are actually not helpful in treating these veins.

Safety should always be our top priority when coming to treatments for our skin. So make sure to get only medical treatments from certified medical doctors!

To know more about the treatments for spider veins, Dr Loo shared about it extensively in our previous article, check it out here: Patient Mailbox: I Avoid Short Skirts Because Of My Leg Veins

We’ll be back with the Patient Mailbox series with Dr Peter Ch’ng next week, so stay tuned!

REVIEWED BY

Dr. Loo Keng Shien

Dr Loo Keng Shien is a medical aesthetic practitioner who loves to listen to patients' problems and find medical solutions to help in their skin and aesthetics journey. Dr Loo practises evidence-based medicine, and with her experience, she has listened to and helped numerous patients solve their skin problems or achieve their aesthetic expectations safely and effectively.