Manifesting as a spreading web of tiny, broken blood vessels, spider veins can appear on the face, calves or anywhere else on the body. While it’s a normal effect of ageing – as skin becomes thinner, dryer and more damaged over the years – it can make people feel self-conscious, especially if the spider veins are on your face.
Spider veins won’t go away on their own. In fact, they tend to worsen over time if the root cause isn’t addressed. However, this doesn’t have to be the case. There are concrete steps you can take to prevent spider veins from appearing or becoming worse.
Treat Your Face Gently
The key to keeping facial spider veins from becoming worse is to treat your skin gently. Avoid being overly vigorous when you wash your face, and use warm water rather than hot. Both vigorous rubbing and scalding water inflict damage to the skin, breaking the delicate capillaries. It’s these broken capillaries that are irreparable without medical treatment, and lead to the worsening of facial spider veins.
Use Sun Protection
Protecting from sunlight is one of the most important ways to prevent spider veins from worsening. The high-energy ultraviolet light in sunlight is damaging to skin, breaking down the collagen that holds the structure of the skin together. Weak skin is no longer elastic, so it stretches without springing back as it used to. With less pressure put on surface veins, they become more visible through the skin.
To prevent the worst of UV damage, make sure to put on a hat and apply sunscreen. Use a broad-spectrum sunscreen that blocks both UVA and UVB light, and is of at least SPF 30 strength. Apply sunscreen at least twenty minutes before stepping out into the sun but, as UVA can penetrate glass windows, you should also consider wearing sunscreen to allow for the possibility of sun exposure while indoors.
Exercise Regularly
Regular exercise improves blood circulation and vein strength. While high-impact exercise can put too much pressure on your leg veins, low-intensity exercise such as walking gets your blood moving. Not only is your heart working to circulate the blood, but the muscles help to massage the veins along. This is especially important in the legs, where large quantities of blood are required to move against gravity.
It is also important to avoid sitting or standing in one spot for too long, so if you work at a desk job, have a stretch every half an hour or hour. Even going to the bathroom counts to prevent spider veins from becoming worse! Simply set an alarm or timer on your phone to help remind you when it’s time to take a break.
Get Medical Treatment
While medical intervention is needed to treat spider veins, by taking these concrete steps, you can stave off their development. Keep following our practical preventative advice until your next visit to the Vein Care clinic. As one of the first vein clinics to use new techniques such as non-surgical laser treatments, we have been administering the cutting edge of spider vein treatments in Melbourne for nearly 20 years. Contact us to learn more or to book your assessment.
