Hand Veins
You can always tell somebody’s age by looking at the back of their hands. Old age spots and prominent veins say it all! Why do the veins on our hands get bigger when we get older?
With age the tone of our skin diminishes. With age (post-menopausal), fat on the back of our hands fades. Veins are more visible with exercise and with hot weather. Chronic intake of some medications can make your skin thinner. Together these facts together make the veins protrude more giving away more than most of us would like.
We can offer surgical or foam injection treatment to treat your hand veins. This page explains the procedures we have available.
Treatments Available
Surgery
Careful surgical removal (through 1 mm incisions) of the most prominent veins can be carried out.
- Pros
- Immediate result Ideal when undergoing other vein surgery in hospital (can be combined)
- Cons
- Expensive (£3500 for both hands)
- Needs day – case hospital admission
- Needs general anaesthetic
- Hands are bruised for 2 to 4 weeks
- Swelling of hands and fingers for up to 2 weeks
- Pressure bandages need to be worn (1 week)
Foam Sclerotherapy
This injection technique eliminates these veins successfully without surgery. A foam sclerosant is injected into the undesirable veins which blocks them off. The body then re-absorbs the veins.
- Pros
- No anaesthetic
- No Hospital admission
- No scan
- Inexpensive (£900 for a course of treatment)
- Cons
- Compression gloves need to be worn for a minimum of 2 weeks following injection of veins
- Some trapped blood may remain in the veins but can be removed with a needle
- More than one treatment session is required – typically 3 sessions
- An excellent cosmetic outcome is achieved but the final result takes a few weeks to achieve – longer than following surgery