My Varicose Veins

Warning:  This post is not for anyone that gets grossed out easily.  In the month of November I decided to take charge of my legs.  I was tired of having ugly varicose veins, but most of all I was tired of the achiness that I constantly had.  I was going to bed at night with throbbing legs and often times they would just ache all day long.  We met our out of pocket maximum for our family when Carson was born, so all medical expenses are paid 100% until the end of the year.  I figured it would be a great time to get it done considering it was going to cost $6,000 and my insurance would pay 100%.    So once a week for 4 weeks in November I went in to the Intermountain vein center for a different surgical procedure.  First they did a phlebectomy on the bulging veins on my left leg, as well as some sclerotherapy.  A phlebectomy is where they make tiny little slits all the way down the vein and stick a hook in there and pull the vein out.  It sounds so simple right?  Well little did I know that veins can attach to your skin and mine were definitely attached.  The Dr. was literally pulling as hard as he could, so hard his hands were shaking.  All the while I watched  (I'm gruesome like that).  Usually they give you Valium to kind of make you loopy so you don't care whats going on, but because I am nursing Carson and didn't want to have to pump and dump for 24 hours I opted out of the Valium.  The sclerotherapy is where they shoot the vein with a needle and inject sclero into the vein and it is supposed to close the vein down.  This can only be done on smaller veins.  So that was the 1st week.  The 2nd week I got my right leg done and they did Endovenous Ablation on my right leg.  This is where they shoot a laser inside of the vein to cauterize the vein.  They were able to do this on my right leg because the vein was much more straight so the laser could reach all the way.  Then the 3rd week they did a phlebectomy on my right leg on the remainder of the bulging vein that didn't shut down with the laser.  Then the 4th week I went for a follow up on all my legs and I still had some achiness in my right leg and sure enough there was still a big open vein behind my knee so they did sclero therapy on that vein.  Now I am done and recovering.  I don't have any final pictures of my legs yet because they are still bruised and the little incision scars are still fading.  I will have bruised kind of brown looking legs where my veins were for up to 6 months.  So maybe in 6 months I will post some after pictures of my legs.

All these pictures are of my Left Leg Before surgery

These buggers behind my knee were the most painful

The pictures below are 2 days after, when I was finally able to take the ace bandages off and the compression stockings off for a shower.  The thin purple lines are marker and the creases are from the bandages so it kind of looks worse then it really is, but all the other purple is bruising. Pretty crazy.

I got a big blood clot/knot where the big bruise is.  It was SO painful.

The pictures below are Day 5.  I was really bruised and still am a month later, but it's slowly getting better.

If you look past the bruising you will see that the veins are gone.

Overall, I'm really glad I did it.  I think I will be happier in 6 months when the bruising and incisions have faded. It is crazy to look down and not see those big bulging veins anymore.  It wasn't nearly as painful as it looks and winter time was a perfect time to do it because I had to wear compression stockings for a month, I wasn't going to be getting in a swimsuit and I am wearing long pants.  The hardest part was not being able to exercise.  I can finally start back up again as of yesterday.