Expert: Gerald Anzalone, D.C. - 4/4/2009

Question
Hi, i hope you can help. I have spider veins on back of my legs nothing major, however my husband who is studying chiropractic did something to my leg and made some of sort of disappear. what happened was one day i was stretching my leg and i got a muscle cramp. he started to put pressure doing the pressure points and i noticed that some of the small veins that were showing on leg were almost fading. is there any research on varicose/spider veins in the chiropractic field. i am ver interested in finding out more, and can you please refer me to some academic websites if you can. thankyou.

Answer
Gina,

My apologies for the delay in responding to your interesting question.

Spider veins, or telangiectasiae, are small dilated blood vessels that appear superficially under the skin, more commonly in women. I am unaware of, and was unable to find in the literature, any reference to reversing telangiectasiae with manual therapy. Medically, telangiectasiae are usually treated by injecting chemicals into the distended veins or by means of laser therapy.

In your particular case, it may be possible that a localized nodule in skeletal muscle (usually referred to as a trigger point) created an area of localized constriction of blood vessels and stasis (or pooling) of blood. Release of the trigger point in the tight muscle may have improved circulation. However, I was unable to find any reference to this in the medical or chiropractic literature. Your case would be considered purely anecdotal, but I am glad that you were able to experience a positive result.