I am writing this as my mother is complaining her legs are hurting deep in the calves. She wears compression stocking daily – I put them on for her as she struggles herself. Even though she swears she MUST have them as the doctor says otherwise she’ll get blood clots and die on the spot (same prognosis if she doesn’t take Statins and dozens of other pills she takes to avoid instant death) – I cannot help think something is wrong by putting on something to squeeze the legs of a person that already has blood-flow problems – surely constricting blood flow at the elasticated tops just under the knee – even if they do free up blood flow elsewhere.
Millions of granny’s with aching legs wear and swear by them
For years growing I have seen thousands of old ladies – and some men wearing strange flesh-coloured stockings. When I was a kid I wondered why they would do this – it turns out there is a good reason. I now know – that they are needed to ‘re-shape’ old veins in the legs and correct misshapen valves to ‘aid’ blood flow back to the heart.
But surely – surely common sense says these tight stockings – especially at the fiercely elasticated top where they end below the knees – and even along the legs and calfs – this would restrict overall blood flow and do the opposite of what we know they are meant to be for? But at the same time – we all know common sense – or the ‘obvious’ appearance of something is sometimes wrong – and they may do just the thing they are meany to do. So first – let’s look at what they compression stocking are meant to do – as I wasn’t 100% sure.
I love doctors – but they are human, and prescribing the wrong solution for a problem does occasionally happen
Most doctors are wonderful, have perfect intentions and get great results designing solutions to their patient’s health problems – respect! With that, I also have in mind the chief asthma nurse at my local surgery that prescribed both myself and my father steroid inhalers for ‘asthma’ that was actually caused by acid reflux that we continued to pick up for about 5 years (I told her my constant coughing was acid reflux at the start, and was only ‘taken off’ steroids for asthma when finally another doctor agreed with me and was baffled as to why the other doctor – chief in her field remember, had prescribed me totally wrong medicine for years.
I secretly did not take my steroids – bad boy – but my father, who comes from that trusting generation – when people were actually trustworthy in Britain – would not listen to me and only came off his when his new doctor told him what I had told my asthma nurse (neither of us have asthma by the way) .
I’m only saying all this as it paints a picture of how messed up thinking and sometimes motives can get where career and money is involved. I found out later for instance there are sometimes shall we say ‘incentives‘ to prescribe certain expensive drugs. My doctor drives a very expensive car by the way and goes on frequent trips abroad – nothing wrong there and I’m certain there is no relationship to prescription of drugs and financial incentives in this case. But to the point – what about compression stockings? Has anyone actually verified that compression stockings work? I had a sneaking suspicion they hadn’t – but we’ll see about that later.
The standard reason compression stockings are commonly cited as working – perhaps true – perhaps not – you decide..
The idea is they correct vein shape and valves that are not working correctly – sounds good
Yes – yes I know – the stockings are used to ‘correct’ widened veins where the vales are apparently no longer working properly. Rather than try to explain myself – have a quick watch of the video above to see the standard reason given by doctors (who we know have all made careful perusal of the many scientific studies as to weather compression stockings really do work and do what they say on the tin;).
Could this be another case of profit before sense?
Whenever I am in doubt about something men ‘swear’ by – I always like to consider is there may be some $$$ reason behind why this odd back-to-front thinking is pushed so hard by so many people. Lo and behold what do we find – it goes without saying a lot of people are making a lot of money from making this ‘fact’ that compression stockings should be worn by virtually every person on the planet over 50 – as if God was not bright enough (having coded the DNA genome) to get veins correct. Well – there is no doubt that whatever is the case here – the love of money really is behind most evils in the world. This is why we must treat every ‘cure’ and every ‘solution’ to a problem with caution.
Video after video on the efficacy of compression stockings followed by a convenient link to ‘BUY NOW!”
I had to search – and search – and search to find the video at the foot of this article. It was buried under dozens and dozens of videos about the wonder of compression stockings – all swearing by their efficacy. We hear a lot from politicians about always following the science (sometime unwise – one should look at any issue from ALL sides and consider all so-called ‘facts’ as how many times were we told by the ‘exerts’ that smoking is good for you (yes millennials this was touted till the 40-50s) and a 1000 other misconceptions later changed to suit the real facts).
And now for some unvarnished truth; So Mr Scientist – do compression stockings really work?
So let’s follow our politicians advice and hear from a real scientist who HAS studied the relatively and expected few scientific studies on compression stockings that exist – an expert in bio-mechanical movement of the body…
Now for our 1-time OFFER!
Now order your 3-for-2 compression stockings here >> (just kidding)
I love God, Christ, The Bible. art, painting, playing music, improvising music, guitar (first instrument), drumming (not very good at it:), and anything musical or art related. Quick note – my articles are usually spun off in minutes so forgive any errors – hopefully you get the essence of the article and I’ll pick up mistakes later. If you want to write of 101ChristianMagazine and inspire and edify Christians with articles on faith, general news, hobbies or anything that interests you email me at: epgb101@gmail.com:)
