Vascular network: what to do — expert advice

Each of us must have at least once encoun­tered vas­cu­lar prob­lems that man­i­fest them­selves in a very fan­ta­sy way on the skin. Cuper­o­sis, spi­der veins or vari­cose veins — how to rec­og­nize them, dis­tin­guish them, pre­vent them and, most impor­tant­ly, cure them if they have already appeared. About this today our con­ver­sa­tion with a der­ma­tol­o­gist.

There were not always times when vas­cu­lar patholo­gies caused incon­ve­nience to women. For a long time, the porce­lain pal­lor of the face was con­sid­ered a sign of aris­toc­ra­cy and sophis­ti­ca­tion, and the face was whitened by var­i­ous avail­able means to the effect of com­plete bleed­ing. But his­to­ry also remem­bers the peri­ods when pale faces sud­den­ly fell into dis­grace, and the ladies con­cen­trat­ed in front of the mir­rors paint­ed for them­selves a blush, spi­der veins on their chests and blue stripes imi­tat­ing wreaths appear­ing on their tem­ples. This was con­sid­ered a sign of the pas­sion of nature!

Today, fash­ion and med­i­cine are unan­i­mous: the skin should be nat­ur­al, smooth and clean. The trend is health, and vas­cu­lar patholo­gies do not fit into this trend. Women no longer aspire to either painful pal­lor, or stars and nets. And med­i­cine has learned to deal with them effec­tive­ly.

What is telangiectasia and why does it appear?

Com­pound word telang­iec­ta­sia doc­tors call all these aster­isks and nets. In fact, this is noth­ing more than a per­sis­tent expan­sion of small skin ves­sels (arte­ri­oles, venules, cap­il­lar­ies) of a non-inflam­ma­to­ry nature.

Vas­cu­lar aster­isks can have dif­fer­ent col­ors: red, blue and their shades. In form, they are also very diverse — they can be lin­ear, arach­nid or dot­ted.

Most often, the pre­dis­po­si­tion to vas­cu­lar patholo­gies is deter­mined by hered­i­ty. In oth­er words, this is an innate fea­ture that man­i­fests itself in the indi­vid­ual strength of the vas­cu­lar walls.

There are sev­er­al oth­er rea­sons for the appear­ance of “decor” on the skin: a vio­la­tion of the out­flow in the venous sys­tem, solar radi­a­tion, hor­mon­al dis­or­ders (espe­cial­ly the effect of estro­gen), phys­i­cal over­strain, smok­ing, alco­hol abuse. Some­times the increased per­me­abil­i­ty of the walls of blood ves­sels is man­i­fest­ed due to a lack of vit­a­min C. Often, those who lead a seden­tary lifestyle suf­fer from vas­cu­lar patholo­gies due to impaired blood cir­cu­la­tion. If you are over­weight, then you are also at risk: it puts pres­sure on the blood ves­sels, and they are forced to work hard­er.

Preg­nan­cy can also affect vasodi­la­tion. Dur­ing the peri­od of expec­ta­tion of the baby, as well as the post­par­tum peri­od, the vas­cu­lar net­works on the legs appear due to hor­mon­al changes and com­pres­sion of the pelvic ves­sels. After some time, some of these ves­sels may dis­ap­pear on their own.

What rules should be followed if there is a tendency to vascular pathologies?

To answer this ques­tion ful­ly and take into account all the nuances, you need to study the moun­tains of text­books, go through a lot of exam­i­na­tions. Because it is nec­es­sary to start with estab­lish­ing the caus­es of the appear­ance of nets and aster­isks, the mech­a­nisms of their devel­op­ment, and then, per­haps, it will be pos­si­ble to talk about pre­ven­tion. But, unfor­tu­nate­ly, no mat­ter how hard we try, we still can­not sig­nif­i­cant­ly influ­ence the state and con­di­tion of our blood ves­sels. There­fore, peo­ple prone to vas­cu­lar patholo­gies should adhere to gen­er­al rec­om­men­da­tions: avoid direct sun­light, do not vis­it solar­i­ums and saunas, do not over­cool (ves­sels do not like high and low tem­per­a­tures), do not drink very hot drinks, alco­hol, do not eat very spicy and salty food, no smok­ing. Choose an active lifestyle, watch your weight and, of course, avoid stress.

Own­ers of “frag­ile” blood ves­sels are often rec­om­mend­ed to take addi­tion­al vit­a­mins and drugs that strength­en blood ves­sels.

Dilat­ed ves­sels on the face most often appear in peo­ple with dry and thin skin. There­fore, it is nec­es­sary to take care of the skin, not to expose it to adverse fac­tors.

Are vascular networks just an aesthetic defect or the first sign of serious illness?

Almost every adult has vas­cu­lar net­works: some­one on the wings of the nose, some­one on the legs. This is not sur­pris­ing, because the ves­sels are con­stant­ly influ­enced by many adverse fac­tors. And vari­cose veins are a seri­ous dis­ease that dis­rupts blood flow and can lead to throm­bophlebitis.

The vas­cu­lar net­work can­not lead to vari­cose veins. Vari­cose veins occur due to patholo­gies of deep and large veins, while the vas­cu­lar net­works have a small diam­e­ter and are locat­ed super­fi­cial­ly. If there are prob­lems with deep veins, then you should imme­di­ate­ly con­tact a phle­bol­o­gist. But regard­ing the elim­i­na­tion of a pure­ly aes­thet­ic defect, such as a vas­cu­lar net­work, it is not at all nec­es­sary to con­sult a phle­bol­o­gist.

But there are cas­es when the patient notes the rapid growth of blood ves­sels, the for­ma­tion of large for­ma­tions, a con­stant feel­ing of heav­i­ness in the legs, full­ness, burn­ing, and some­times night cramps in the calf mus­cles. In this case, you should def­i­nite­ly con­tact a vas­cu­lar sur­geon.

Can telangiectasias be treated conservatively?

We have all heard about “mir­a­cle oint­ments”, spe­cial com­pres­sion under­wear, pil­lows from “spi­der veins” in the treat­ment of telang­iec­tasias. How­ev­er, der­ma­tol­o­gists are very skep­ti­cal about this: how can an oint­ment or stock­ings “glue” a ves­sel? It defies the laws of physics and the laws of med­i­cine. Of course, all these meth­ods can improve blood cir­cu­la­tion, relieve heav­i­ness in the legs, help the ves­sels with­stand pres­sure and not burst, some­how delay the process of increas­ing the loca­tion of the “vas­cu­lar net­works”, but they can­not cure already burst­ing ves­sels, alas. This can only be an addi­tion to the main method of treat­ment.

As for mas­sage, it must be said that in places where there are telang­iec­tasias, it is gen­er­al­ly not desir­able. And ener­getic and vac­u­um are con­traindi­cat­ed at all.

How does laser treatment of telangiectasia work?

When remov­ing vas­cu­lar pathol­o­gy, the ener­gy of the laser beam is selec­tive­ly absorbed by blood hemo­glo­bin. This leads to heat­ing of the ves­sel wall, it sticks togeth­er and becomes emp­ty. With­in a few weeks, the ves­sel is elim­i­nat­ed by cells of the immune sys­tem. Removal of blood ves­sels is a tar­get­ed effect only on patho­log­i­cal ves­sels. Healthy tis­sues remain undam­aged because the laser ener­gy is direct­ed only at the vas­cu­lar wall. With the help of mod­ern lasers, coag­u­la­tion is per­formed safe­ly and effi­cient­ly, with­out harm­ing the sur­round­ing healthy tis­sues. Coag­u­la­tion, in fact, is the process of glu­ing the vas­cu­lar walls togeth­er.

The pro­ce­dure, depend­ing on the thresh­old of sen­si­tiv­i­ty and the pow­er of the laser beam, may be pain­less, but some­times you may feel a slight tin­gling sen­sa­tion. In any case, the pro­ce­dure is accom­pa­nied by a stream of cold air, which makes it less painful.

After the pro­ce­dure, slight hyper­emia (red­ness) appears on the skin, but on the sec­ond or third day every­thing dis­ap­pears. Rarely, patients com­plain that there are crusts as a con­se­quence of laser treat­ment, they will also pass.

Who is not eligible for laser treatment?

The pro­ce­dure has no par­tic­u­lar con­traindi­ca­tions, except for those gen­er­al con­di­tions in which laser inter­ven­tion is not rec­om­mend­ed. These are infec­tious and viral dis­eases in the acute stage, onco­log­i­cal dis­eases, pus­tu­lar skin lesions. The doc­tor should warn about drugs that cause pho­to­sen­si­tiv­i­ty and for which laser treat­ment is not rec­om­mend­ed. No spe­cial prepa­ra­tion for the pro­ce­dure is required. And the “after” rec­om­men­da­tions are quite stan­dard: for about a week, refrain from vis­it­ing saunas, baths, phys­i­cal activ­i­ty and alco­hol, since any accel­er­a­tion of blood cir­cu­la­tion can pro­voke the reap­pear­ance of a vas­cu­lar com­po­nent on the sur­face of the skin.

How many procedures are needed to achieve the result?

Alas, no one will give a 100% guar­an­tee that the ves­sel will not return. This is a genet­i­cal­ly deter­mined process, and the appear­ance of new ones, at the site of removal or on oth­er parts of the body, unfor­tu­nate­ly, is pos­si­ble. But the soon­er you start solv­ing the prob­lem, the bet­ter and faster the good result will be. The result of treat­ment is enough for a peri­od of sev­er­al months to sev­er­al years, but then some ves­sels may appear again. One to three pro­ce­dures are need­ed for com­plete removal. It depends on the depth and diam­e­ter of the ves­sel, which the doc­tor will imme­di­ate­ly tell you about dur­ing the ini­tial con­sul­ta­tion.

What is microsclerotherapy?

Any con­sci­en­tious and hon­est doc­tor is oblig­ed to offer the patient the entire list of pos­si­ble solu­tions to the prob­lem. But today, few peo­ple doubt that laser treat­ment is the most effec­tive method for elim­i­nat­ing the vas­cu­lar net­work. How­ev­er, be pre­pared for what microscle­rother­a­py can offer you. This method is more trau­mat­ic than laser removal, but also less expen­sive. It con­sists in the intro­duc­tion of a spe­cial drug (scle­rosant) into the thick­ness of the ves­sel, which caus­es glu­ing and necro­sis of the ves­sel. The pro­ce­dure is more del­i­cate and time con­sum­ing. In addi­tion, post-manip­u­la­tion care involves wear­ing com­pres­sion under­wear for sev­er­al weeks. This is anoth­er dis­ad­van­tage of the method. The laser in this case copes much faster.