Surgery for Varicose Veins

Surgery is one of the treatment options available to you, if your varicose veins symptoms become increasingly bothersome. There are several surgical procedures you can choose from to treat your varicose veins.

What Surgery Involves

More than often surgery is performed on an outpatient basis. During the surgery, the vein is either tied in a procedure called ligation or stripped or removed in a procedure called avulsion. All three surgical procedures come with their own risks and benefits. To find out what surgical procedure best suits your needs, ask your doctor and the specialist who will perform the procedure about the risks and benefits associated with each.

Types of Surgery

Ligation

During Ligation, your vein specialist will make a 2 to 4 cm long incision at your groin to expose the saphenous vein. He or she will then examine the saphenous vein to see where it enters the femoral vein and tie the saphenous vein at the entrance. If your varicose veins are located in the back of your lower leg, your specialist will examine the lesser saphenous vein, by making an incision behind your knee joint. Ligation can be performed under a local anesthesia. This procedure carries a low risk of recurrence, as long as the valves of the perforator veins are functioning. Recovering from vein ligation often takes a few days.

Avulsion

During avulsion, your vein specialist will make numerous of tiny micro-incisions in your leg to remove the veins via special hooks. This procedure may be performed alone or in conjunction with vein stripping.

Stripping

During this procedure, your vein specialist will make two incisions – one at the groin and one at the knee – to insert a tunneling device between the two points. This device is used to pull the saphenous vein out.

Stripping often leaves scars and causes bruising for a few weeks. Numbness and bleeding may also occur afterwards. Your specialist can stop the bleeding by applying pressure dressings to your leg. However, recovering from stripping of the veins often takes about 5 to 10 days.

Although, this procedure is generally performed on severely enlarged veins, specialists choose to perform this procedure at last resort. In order, to preserve the vein in case, you need to undergo coronary artery bypass surgery in the future.

Risk of Recurrence

Surgery may not permanently eliminate your varicose veins. Since a risk of recurrence of varicose veins can occur if your specialist fails to ligate the vein at right point in the groin or if the perforator veins become incompetent.

What are Perforator veins?

Perforator veins link the superficial venous system to the deep veins in your legs. Valves in the perforators prevent the blood from flowing backwards. But if the valves weaken or become damaged, the perforator veins become incompetent. That is, they fail to prevent the blood from refluxing, and as a result, form varicose veins.