Chronic venous insufficiency occurs when your leg veins do not allow the blood to flow back to your heart.  There are valves in your veins that prevent backflow of blood when returning to the heart.  These vein valves can become dysfunctional leading to venous insufficiency or blood pooling in your legs. 

Venous insufficiency presents with swollen legs/ankles, painful legs, brown colored skin near the ankles, varicose veins or even leg skin ulcerations.

One treatment option is endovenous laser ablation or radiofrequency ablation of the superficial leg veins with incompetent valves. Typically, a venous ultrasound confirms which veins have incompetent valves.  Once the diseased veins are identified, a small catheter is placed into that vein and heat and/or chemicals are delivered which scars the diseased vein closed.  This closed vein prevents further leg blood pooling and reduces or eliminates symptoms.  

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