Compression Socks!
This may sound like a funny thing to be passionate about, but here we are. I wear them. A lot of people wear them; some people should and some people shouldn’t wear them.
But, you HAVE to clear this topic by your primary care provider, general practitioner, and/or cardiologist/ nephrologist first before you start to wear compression socks. This is important! Wearing compression socks can overload certain organs and also cut off blood and lymphatic flow in certain medical conditions.
They are great, when you’re allowed to wear them. They are bad when you shouldn’t be wearing them.
(and, those who know me know that I don’t use the word “bad” lightly).
Ok, enough of the soap box and Mama-Bear-ing.
Here are some of the things that I look for in compression socks:
Pressure: 20-30mmHg
Bigger is not better; above 45mmHg can cut off or decrease lymphatic fluid flow.
GRADUATED
This means that the sock gradually gets looser as it travels up the calf and this helps with returning swelling to circulation and encouraging it to come UP the body, instead of pooling in the feet.
Solid colours!
Printed socks often have difficulty maintaining the same pressure across the whole sock and end up leaving the print in your skin. This isn’t necessarily a problem, unless you have sensation changes in your skin, but why risk skin breakdown and wounds?
Measure yourself
This is not something you want to roll down (it will cut off circulation) or have fall too short (probably uncomfortable).
No holes!
This sounds silly, but unless you’re bedridden in the hospital and someone needs to check your skin and circulation via looking at your toes, make sure that your socks are full all the way through the toes. Some socks are sold with openings at the end and I can’t imagine that would be comfortable for those of us walking around in shoes trying to lead normal lives working and taking care of the house, etc.
Overall, I think MDSox does a good job and, although expensive, if you air dry them after running them through the washing machine, they actually last a long time. I ended up buying one pair for each day of the week to have time to wash and dry them in between and I had my first set for 5+ years before the heal started to show some wear. I’m sure there are other good brands out there, I just stuck with these when I found ones I like.
Ok, so why the passion around compression socks? When I was in my Doctor of Physical Therapy Program at MGH Institute of Health Professions, it was ranked 2nd and 7th in the country on two of the websites that rank schools. We were fortunate enough that they did special things for us, like cadaver dissections (at the time) and they also flew in the country’s top Physical Therapist in the Wound Care Specialty world to workshop us. This person was super passionate (almost nutty) about compression socks and about them being a necessity in jobs/ lifestyles that require either a lot of sitting or a lot of standing.
When I started wearing them, happy and unintentional side-effects included (a) improvement in the severity and frequency of my headaches, (b) not as much dizziness changing positions from kneeling down to standing up, and, the most important and strangest of them all (c) I no longer got up in the middle of the night to pee. You see, I had been getting up for 10 years at exactly 2:15am every morning and I was driving myself close to insanity. My medical providers shrugged because they had no idea why. It turns out that my feet were swelling imperceptibly and JUST enough during the day (thank you, gravity) that it wasn’t until I lay down at night to sleep that my kidneys had the opportunity to clear the excess from my system.
Here are some tips on how/ when to use them:
Put them on within 20 minutes of standing up in the morning to minimize how much fluid gets pulled down by gravity and stays in your feet and lower legs.
Make sure your skin is DRY-dry. If you’re skin is wet it’s going to be pure misery and impossible to put them on.
Do NOT wear them to sleep. Take them off when you’re lying down for a nap or to sleep overnight.
Anyway, I guess I should stop there. I did warn you that I like compression socks :)
Please ask your primary care, general practitioner, and/or cardiologist/ nephrologist before wearing compression socks though.
Yours in service,
Dr. CJ Mimee, PT, DPT, RYT
