For the first time in decades, the FDA has approved a new medicine to make unsightly spider veins go away. That new medicine is called Asclera. Its generic name is polidocanol. And medicines like Asclera that are injected into spider veins to make them disappear are called sclerosants, and that technique or procedure is called sclerotherapy. If you're not familiar with that procedure, you may want to look at the DermTV episode on What is Sclerotherapy? The reason that I'm so excited about the approval of Asclera is that it's the best sclerosant and the safest. In reality, Asclera has probably been available for about 20 years in generic form in the United States, but most physicians were appropriately reluctant to use it because it wasn't FDA approved. Now that it is FDA approved, it's available to all physicians who treat unsightly spider veins. The reason that I'm so excited about it is first of all its efficacy. It works so well at making spider veins go away and one of the reasons for that is you can adjust the dosage so that you can treat spider veins from small ones to medium ones to larger ones and even varicose veins very effectively. Number tw njecting this material is completely painlessโ€ฆvery, very important to patients of course. Number three, and perhaps just as important, is the safety of Asclera. The previously FDA approved sclerosants were much too dangerous. They had severe side effects which weren't frequent but when they occurred they were serious. I'm happy to say that with Asclera side effects are much fewer and very, very mild if they occur at all. So now that Asclera is available and FDA approved there is a much better way and easier way for men and women to have their unsightly spider veins removed so they no longer have to see them.