Can Lasers or Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) be used to treat leg veins?
Lasers are only effective for treating small capillary veins and mat telangiectasia. Leg veins are significantly larger and deeper, making them less accessible to the laser light. To treat vessels we need to heat up the blood inside the vessel and in larger vessels this process can damage surrounding skin with an increased risk of scarring in treatment leg veins. Lasers are however sometimes combined with Micro-sclerotherapy to remove any tiny vessels which are too small to be injected, and your practitioner will discuss this with you at the time of treatment if she feels that laser treatment would help to remove some of the smaller leg veins. Side-effects of laser treatment on the legs include redness, blistering, pigmentation and scarring. The risk of side-effects is considerably increased in darker skin types.
