What Are the Benefits of Wearing Support Stockings?

They aren't your grandma's support hose anymore. Support stockings today come in a variety of styles, from functional and opaque to sexy and thigh-high with lace---and they still retain all the benefits that grandma enjoyed.

Stockings for patients of all kinds

• Support stockings, socks and graduated compression hosiery help with leg problems and ailments. They are generally recommended by doctors. Men and women of all ages, including pregnant women, can be asked to wear support stockings.

What they do

• Support stockings generally work by creating pressure around your ankle. This helps with circulation.

  They can also assist with the treatment of:

  -minor to serious leg pain
  -swelling
  -deep vein thrombosis
  -varicose veins
  -other leg problems

Fluid retention

• Support stockings can reduce fluid accumulation in the legs and ankles. They can also improve overall leg pain, 'tightness' and feelings of heaviness due to fluid retention.

Help for painful leg ulcers

• Painful venous skin ulcers can be helped by wearing compression stockings which control fluid buildup and pooling of blood in your lower legs.

Prevention is key

• Support stockings can help restaurant wait staff or others that must stand on their feet for long periods of time by preventing fatigue. They can help slow the onset of varicose veins and other leg ailments.

Why is compression important?

• If you have any circulatory problems, it is very important to wear compression stockings to help keep your blood circulating. If blood and fluid are allowed to pool in your legs, lower legs, or ankles, your legs will become swollen, achy and even painful. Worse, after extended swelling your skin will begin to break down on your legs and form open wounds or leg ulcers.