Patients often ask if there is anything that may be done to prevent the occurrence of new spider veins.  The truth is the most important thing you can do to prevent spider veins is to choose your parents well.  This is a joke, of course, but just as there is little you can do about choosing your parents so also there is little else you can do to prevent spider veins from appearing.  Wearing compression stockings or taking supplements advertised for that purpose have not been shown to reduce their appearance.  Treatment of spider veins that currently exist slows the process but does not prevent other spider veins that were destined to fail from gradually appearing.  For this reason, most patients who elect to undertake the treatment of spider veins will need a single treatment session or, in more advanced cases, two sessions, every year or two to maintain what they have achieved.  This is because the genetic “seed” is still in the veins.  However, leaving the problem alone only allows it to worsen.