How do compress socks work?
In: Biology
I’ll try:
Your heart pushes your oxygen-rich blood down into your feet, from big arteries to small ones to little capillaries, and then it goes into the tiniest veins and starts back up, into bigger and bigger veins and finally back to the heart where it gets a push to the lungs for more oxygen.
Now, in order to keep the blood moving, especially going back up, the walls of the veins have to be pretty strong and tight, and there’s also some flappies that help it not wash back down. But they still have to be stretchy and flexible for movement and hydration changes, etc.
But like your whole body, the vein walls and flappies get a bit saggy and stretched out with age. It’s still easy to pump the blood down, but not so easy for it to climb back up.
Compression socks help support the vein walls so the blood moves back towards the heart. As the blood pressure builds, the socks push back, just like the young vein walls used to, and the blood moves up.
You don’t want creases in the socks that can cut off the flow too much, in either direction, so be sure to smooth them out and check them occasionally.
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