Hosiery News

GRADUATED COMPRESSION HOSIERY

We have so many customers asking us: What is that? Why do we need that? Do we need to wear them? Is there any benefit from wearing these tights? How to choose the one that suits my needs? How to tell the real one from fake? And lots of other related questions. So the time has come and we decided to open you a professional secret of Support or in other words Graduated Compression hosiery.
Let start with What is Graduated Compression(GC) hosiery?
Graduated Compression hosiery basically is a specially knitted hose with different level of compression along the leg which diminishes from ankle to the thigh. Different kind of yarns are used in production of GC hosiery, in order to achieve massage effect, to promote the proper blood circulation and revitalize your legs by stimulating them all day long. All of that make the production of the GC hosiery costlier which leads to a higher price on the GC products than on regular ones.
These hosiery can offer a wide variety of effects depending on the level of compression, from light stimulating and energizing effect to the strong support for the post surgery patients or varicose vein sufferers. There are 4 major groups of the compression products available on the market: Light, Medium, Strong and Super Strong . We carry products by one specific Italian manufacturer, Elly that specializes in GC hosiery and their products have numerous certifications that real Support hosiery should have. Speaking of real support hosiery, in order to achieve a proper pressure and push blood upstream a hosiery should have reinforced toe and heel. Sometimes you'll find Light support hosiery without reinforced heel and that's OK, but only for a LIGHT support.
You've probably tried a pair of support hosiery at least once, was it a good experience or bad depends on a huge number of factors. First of all you have to get the RIGHTS size of the graduated compression hosiery to get the right result from it. These are a special type of tights , they have to fit tightly on your legs. So you can feel that the hose is hugging your leg. That means that massage and push up effect is working. How tight they should hug your legs depends on the level of the compression. Level of compression measures in mmHg(millimeter of Mercury).
Light level of compression(mmHg3-12) is for people who don't have any medical concerns. It will help reduce fatigues and energize your legs so you won't feel tired after long busy day. Medium level Compression hugs your legs tighter, gives stronger massage than light compression hosiery and pushes blood upstream to reduce swelling and tiredness in your legs. Medium level of compression measures between 13- to 17 mmHg . This would be hosiery that can help with swelling feet or poor blood circulation for people who is prone to have blood circulatory problems or have profession that requires “full day on your feet”. This level of compression is not for treating existed medical problems where as the Strong and Super Strong compression products designed specifically for people with serious medical concerns. Strong Compression hosiery(mmHg17-22) helps people with varicose veins and swelled feet. These tights normalize blood circulation, ease the pain and help stabilize and in some cases even improve the condition. We suggest to consult you physician before ordering a Super Strong compression hosiery(mmHg25-35).
When should you wear these tights? Whenever you wear regular hosiery or even more. So anytime and anywhere you can wear them. And let me remind you that if you are a mom-to-be you MUST wear support hosiery, because during this very important period of your life you has an extra precious cargo beside yourself to take care of. Your legs take more stress than ever in your life, you gain weight, your blood volume increases at least by ¼ of your regular amount, percentage of water in your body increases and according to medical data about half of the pregnant women suffer from the various degree of swollen feet. So protect your legs and wear support hosiery during pregnancy starting from the very early days.
How to choose a right hosiery? First of all you have to determine what your body needs and what you want to achieve wearing GC hosiery. I mean you have to choose what level of compression to choose. Then look at the size chart, unfortunately there is no one unified size chart even inside one manufacturer line, so in order to get the correct size please check the size chart first before ordering. If you fall between two sizes it's recommended by all manufacturers to take a larger one.
Does the Denier value say anything about level of compression? Oh, no. Please don't confuse Deniers with the Compression level. Most of the time there is a connection between the Denier and Level of Compression, because in order to achieve higher Compression manufacturers use heavier( higher in Denier) yarns. For example: you cannot achieve 35mmHg compression using 20 Denier yarns. So the lighter the hosiery the lighter compression but there is no reverse correlation. That's why 120Denier hosiery can be a Light compression one.
My personal view on the compression hosiery is that it's very helpful and nowadays these hosiery looks as gorgeous and irresistible as any designers piece of hose, so why not to put on something that will make my legs look great and at the same time feel energized and vitalized. Who doesn't need a bust of energy these days. So these hosiery bring beauty and wellbeing to your legs.
You can find all our Compression Graduated hosiery in Support Tights and Control Top Categories. If you have any questions or would like to know more about compression or any other hosiery, please feel free to ContactUs.