Effective Treatment of Foot and Ankle Varicose Veins

I often see patients with significant varicose veins on the foot or the ankle, and these veins are particularly symptomatic when right shoes or sandals are worn. For some reason, patients like the one you see on the left are told that these veins are untreatable, probably due to the physician's lack of familiarity or experience with this type of venous disease.


While most varicosities appear in the thigh and calf, veins can certainly appear at the ankle and foot as gravity continually pushes downward, forcing blood to travel down, instead of up, the leg.

Evaluating veins in the foot is very similar to the evaluation of thigh and calf, including a venous duplex scan. This ultrasound indicates the direction of blood flow in the leg and the function of the one-way vein valves that should propel the blood up the leg. It is dysfunction of the one-way valves that leads to varicose veins.

Treatment is typically endovenous ablation with the Venefit Procedure, or newer methods such as Varithena and Clarivein. The purpose of these procedures is to seal the refluxing saphenous vein and normalize venous flow in the leg. This eliminates the typical symptoms of aching, heaviness and fatigue, and also allows the surface varicosities to shrink to a more normal size. Occasionally, office based micro-phebectomy is done to completely eliminate the surface veins.

Your health insurer often will cover much, if not all, of the cost of these procedures, because the medical community recognizes that untreated venous insufficiency can lead to longer term complications.

The photos below show the typical results when foot veins are treated with the Venefit Procedure and micro-phlebectomy.