With summer just around the corner, many people are considering how to make their legs look more shapely, firmer or tanner. However, for the estimated 25 million Americans with varicose veins, the answer isn't as easy as exercise or tanning lotion.

There is a treatment that is being pioneered in North Texas and touts itself to be just the answer.

Many women dread shorts season for reasons far more serious than leg hair.

"They stuck out and they were painful," said Debbie Childs, of Fort Worth. "They were just ugly."

Childs is referring to what she said were large, blue varicose veins that mottled her legs.

"I would never imagine even wearing shorts because they looked so bad," she said.

Like millions of women, hers developed after having children.

Childs said she didn't want to try painful vein stripping, which is the standard treatment to rid people varicose veins.

"We've eliminated a lot of the pain, a lot of the bed rest [and] a lot of the problems with not being able to get around," said Jon Senkowsky, an Arlington vascular surgeon, of the ClosureFast catheter procedure.

ClosureFast is an advancement of current technology that takes just minutes. Dr. Senkowsky calls it a true breakthrough.

"It uses radio frequency or microwave energy to iron the vein from the inside out," he said.

It works by inserting a thin catheter into a varicose vein in the thigh. Radio frequency heat shrinks the upper vein from the inside out. It has a positive effect on varicose veins below the knee.

"That takes the pressure of the varicose veins in the lower leg and causes them, or allows them, to shrink up over time," said Dr. Senkowsky. "It's not always the big, bulging one that's the problem. Sometimes there are deeper veins that cause the big bulging veins, and those are the ones we need to treat. Otherwise, if we just take out the varicose veins, they'll come back in a few years."

Full results take between six weeks and four months.

Former pilot Joe Oyler opted for the procedure after years sitting in a cramped cockpit finally caught up with his legs in an agonizing way.

"It's just the continual sitting that cramps the blood flow," he said. "You don't think about it when you're young and bullet proof. But as you get older, it starts to affect you."

Doctors emphasize the procedure is not done for cosmetic purposes, nor does it treat spider veins.

It can eliminate the large, potentially dangerous varicose veins that come from careers spent on the feet or in a chair for long periods of time.

Oyler walked out of the office after his brief procedure, which was covered by insurance.

Childs said after years of hiding her legs, she's ready to show them off.

"I am not embarrassed to go anywhere and wear shorts," said the proud mother of two. "I'm looking forward to pool season."

E-mail jstjames@wfaa.com