New procedure gets rid of varicose veins quickly, painlessly

By Shelley Mann
shelley.mann@gwinnettdailypost.com

Staff Photo: James Nedock
Dr. Charles Moomey talks about a varicose vein closure procedure. A thin catheter is inserted into the vein, delivering radio frequency energy to the vein wall, which causes it to heat, collapse and seal shut.

LAWRENCEVILLE — Janine Vickery has had varicose veins since she was 12 years old. Last year, they had eroded from her skin and started bleeding at her ankles almost daily.
Just weeks after Gwinnett Medical Center’s Dr. Charles Moomey performed a new vein closure procedure on her legs, Vickery’s veins are less noticeable and have stopped bleeding.
Before she stumbled across the new procedure, Vickery’s doctors told her she’d just have to live with varicose veins, and her insurance company continually denied claims for what they called cosmetic surgery to fix them. The Braselton woman, mother to a 13-, 10- and 2-year-old, couldn’t afford to pay for the surgery herself.
“My legs used to look like a 90-year-old woman’s. I’m 38 years old. I’m not old enough to have legs like that,” she said.
The vein closure procedure has been a life-changing experience for Vickery, who can now ride bikes, play basketball and shop at the mall with her kids — all things the veins kept her from doing.
Forty million Americans are believed to have varicose vein disease, and only a fraction seek treatment, said Moomey, a vascular surgeon with Gwinnett Surgical Associates.
Everyone has veins in their legs to pump blood back up to the body, but the veins gradually lose their function as people age, and most people end up with varicose veins, which pool blood rather than pumping it.
Varicose veins hurt, and they’re cosmetically unappealing, Moomey said, which are the top reasons people want to get rid of them. Historically, the only treatment method was undergoing open surgery to remove the veins from the leg, a painful procedure that comes with bruising, swelling and a long recovery time, he said.
Moomey and a few other area doctors have just recently begun using the vein closure treatment, an outpatient surgical procedure in which a 3-millimeters-wide catheter is inserted into a small incision in the patient’s knee. During the 30-minute process, the catheter sends out radio waves to heat, seal and close off the vein.
“The vein shrinks down instantly, and the blood flow is stopped,” Moomey said. “Patients are up and walking that night.”
Typical recovery time for the procedure is two to four days, rather than the two to four weeks that accompanied the traditional surgery. The estimated reoccurrence rate for the new procedure is 10 percent, about the same as the old surgery, Moomey said.
Moomey said he prefers female patients wait to undergo the vein closure procedure until after they’re done having children, because carrying children is a direct cause of varicose veins.
The insurance-covered procedure is helpful in almost all varicose vein patients, Moomey said, but about 1 percent of patients have veins that aren’t conducive to the treatment. The veins could be too big, too close to the skin or too coiled to accommodate the catheter, he said.
Moomey and Gwinnett Medical Center will host a community seminar on the vein closure procedure this spring. For more information, call Gwinnett Medical Center spokeswoman Paula Martin at 679-442-3549.