What really happens

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What really happens - 2
Whether sclerotherapy works or not depends on whether the whole vein wall is destroyed by the sclerosing agent or not. If we compare a large vein - the sort that become varicose - with a thread vein, we can see that the normal/varicose vein is larger than the thread vein. But more importantly, the wall is far thicker - especially the media. If you now look at the animation on the left of this page you cam see the effects of injecting sclerosing agent on each of these sorts of veins
		Even though a different concentration of sclerosing agent would be used for the two different sorts of veins, the basic problem is one of diffusion. In the thicker walled vein, only the inner layers are affected - therefore the cells of the intima and inner part of the media are killed - but cells in the the outer media and adventia are still alive. The thread vein, being a much thinner wall, with far fewer cells in it, allows easier diffusion of the sclerosing agent and so the whole wall is treated
This means that all the cells in the wall are killed, the whole vein wall becomes inflamed and the vein becomes a scar that disappears with time. However, in the thicker walled varicose veins, It is the survival of the outer layers of the vein wall that stops the vein from becoming a scar and disappearing
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