Spider veins probably look pretty cool if you're a 5-year-old, would-be Spider-Man.

But anyone over the age of 7 wants the Spidey-sense turned off when its only manifestation is an ugly cluster of red, blue or purple veins on your face. Most probably on your nose. That's where sun-baked farmers often get their spider veins in blue abundance.

For years, this common cosmetic problem was easily remedied by sclerotherapy. In this procedure, veins are injected with saline, a solution that causes them to collapse (or "sclerose"). The body then reabsorbs them and they fade away.

This year, an even easier cosmetic solution has been found: VeinWave therapy. And Dr. Mark Nielsen of the Siouxland Vein Clinic, 4630 Singing Hills Blvd., has it. His is the only VeinWave system in Iowa, he said. The device was FDA-approved in June. Nielsen's VeinWave system arrived less than a month ago.

A heart surgeon since 1991, Nielsen has been specializing in veins for about three years, the market for heart surgeons having declined a bit in recent years thanks in large part to the improvement of heart stents. The newer stents significantly delay the need for bypass surgery. Since he had done a great deal of vascular surgery, Nielsen found vein work a natural way to reinvent himself, as other surgeons have done.

For most of the past three years, Nielsen has been a leg man, dealing predominantly with varicose veins.

"I didn't treat spider veins because I'd been doing all heart surgery until the last three years ... and then added veins to it," he said. "But this came along, and it's attractive in its simplicity and the fact that you don't have to come back like you do with lasers and get lasered again. Laser hurts more than this."

The VeinWave system, developed in London by Dr. Brian Newman and in European use for about eight years, removes small, unwanted thread veins and vascular blemishes on legs and faces. It uses thermocoagulation to remove these spider veins quickly and permanently. The process utilizes high frequency microwave energy to heat the visible vein, causing it to be reabsorbed into the body. It works particularly well on the smaller spider veins, Nielsen said.

Most folks frown on sclerotherapy when it comes to the face, not wishing to inject anything there. With injection, there is always the possibility of complications, such as fluid getting out of the vessel. "And you can have problems with skin being damaged by that," Nielsen said. "You can get a thing called matting, which is kind of dark pigment related to sclerotherapy or injection of spider veins."

So when it comes to facial spider veins, the preferred treatment has been laser therapy or pulse light therapy.

"Now there's this VeinWave thing," he said. "We were at some conferences and it looked like a good deal. So we purchased one." He also took some training with Newman.

VeinWave therapy generally last 20 to 25 minutes, depending on the number of veins being treated.

"Closing the vein with radio frequency, it takes about 20 minutes and the patient can go to the mall afterwards. And it's the same effectiveness for treatment of varicose veins, but there's scant pain at all," he said.

Patients undergoing surgery for varicose veins as recently as the early 1980s, when he was in medical training, would have to spend 7 to 10 days in the hospital after the then-used stripping procedure, he said, noting how much things have improved since then.

VeinWave uses an ultrafine insulated needle through which very high frequency microwave energy is delivered into the blood vessels, causing heating and shrinkage of the veins without damaging the surrounding skin. After treatment, the targeted blood vessels fade away over the course of a few weeks.

"You just go through the first portion of the skin, the epithelium," Nielsen said. "And you contact these little spider veins, and then it's a foot pedal that delivers the energy. There's just a little microwave energy out of the tip of that, and it just seals them up, It closes them, and you can see it, right as you do it. It's very neat."

The doctor is wearing one of those space-age magnified visor apparatuses with a polarized light that lightens up areas not so visible to the naked eye. It's not that you can't see the spider veins anyway, he noted.

"It feels more like a warm, mild pin prick," he said of the high-tech needle work.

"It's real benefit is on the facial stuff because they're gone instantly," he said of the spider veins. "You can go out in the sun. You can put makeup on. There are no 'don'ts' after doing it."

The procedure is considered cosmetic surgery. So it is not covered by insurance, one drawback, he noted.

It works for everyone, regardless of age, sex or color -- and the veins don't reappear, though new spider veins can appear with patients who are susceptible to them, he noted.

While grudgingly admitting that more women opt for the procedure than women "because women are more concerned about how their face looks," he said men are taking a harder look at it.