A viewer asked about facial broken capillaries. The viewer described red vein-looking marks on the sides of his nose that had been there for over a year, and was wondering if they were broken capillaries. Yes, those are broken capillaries. But actually, broken capillaries aren't really broken, meaning there aren't any holes or actual breaks in the capillaries... So the blood is still in them and that's why you can see them as little red, blue or purple, linear or curved, marks on your face Especially on your cheeks, nose and chin. Well if they're not broken, then what's wrong with them? Actually, the wall of the capillary, which is a very small blood vessel, is weakened and so it stretches out and fills up with too much blood. So the capillary gets stretched out and over-filled, just like a blown up balloon compared to the balloon before it's blown up. So this is the width of a blown up balloon and this was it's width without air. The blown up one is about 20-25 times fatter than un-inflated one, which is a realistic comparison of a broken cappilary to a normal one. So when the capillaries are distended with too much blood, we call them broken. There are many causes of broken capillaries including sun damage, the effects of female hormones, spicy foods, alcohol and heredity. But the good news is they're real easy to treat and completely curable with painless, no downtime laser treatments by your dermatologist. To find a cosmetic dermatologist near you, and have your red, ruddy-looking broken capillaries removed, visit WWW.AAD.ORG or WWW.ASDS.NET. Treatment is so easy it's almost like magic!