Hand-Vein Treatment

It has been said that hands do not lie. You can have age erased from your face and body, but your hands will give you away. Today there are treatments to give you back the soft, plump-looking hands of your youth. All you need is time, money and a good med spa, dermatologist or plastic surgeon.

• Smooth Hands Are a Sign of Youth

Causes

• Aging

  There are several causes for unsightly hand veins. Losing a great deal of weight can cause your hands to thin, revealing purple-colored veins and bulging tendons. Extreme amounts of exercise will get you fit, but it also can cause your veins to be more visible as well. The most common reason for large, unsightly hands is the aging process.

Symptoms

• Easy on the Weights

  Aging hands are unmistakable. The skin takes on a wasted appearance, and veins and tendons appear closer to the surface. This is basically due to the loss of subcutaneous fat; the thin layer right under the skin's surface. With the loss of fat, wrinkling is not far behind. Bulging veins in young people are usually due to weight lifting and muscle development.

Prevention

• Sunscreen helps

  There are few things you can do to prevent veins due to aging. The best way is to disguise the veins by keeping the skin on the hand healthy. Vitamin-K cream has been shown to have limited success on veins. Your best bet is to use sunscreen daily to keep age spots from forming, which will accentuate the problem. Large veins due to exercise will be less apparent when heat exposure is eliminated; in other words, keeping cool will help shrink veins.

Surgical Treatments

• Treatments

  Ambulatory phlebectomy can remove the surface of varicose veins. Most often this can be done in a doctor's office using local anesthesia. There is very little scarring after the vein is removed. A more-popular treatment is sclerotherapy. This method can be used for varicose and spider veins. The vein is injected with a medication that causes the vein to collapse. It is then absorbed by the body over a period of a few weeks. Ablative lasers are also used to reduce or eliminate hand veins. Sometimes a combination of sclerotherapy and lasers are used.

Other Treatments

• Injectable fillers can be used to plump up the skin on the hand to make the veins less noticeable. Fillers must be repeated; they are not a permanent fix. Many plastic surgeons are also doing fat transfers from one part of the body to the hand, hoping for a more long-term filler.