Does compression speed up healing?
How Does Compression Therapy Work?
Most people think of compression therapy as the standard treatment for deep vein thrombosis. But here at Mimi Lee, MD in Little Rock, AR, compression therapy may be used to treat multiple conditions, including chronic venous insufficiency and lymphedema. The treatment works by using pressure to help improve blood flow and reduce swelling.
How Does Compression Therapy Work?
Compression therapy works by applying pressure to swollen areas, and it helps push the blood and fluid out of the tissues. The treatment can help speed up your healing process and provide pain relief from surgeries or injuries. You may also need compression therapy to address underlying medical conditions that affect blood flow, such as deep vein thrombosis or varicose veins.
What To Expect During the Therapy
While you undergo treatment, you may need to wear bandages or wraps for a few days or weeks, depending on your condition. Dr. Mimi Lee will provide you with instructions based on your personalized treatment plan. If you have any concerns while undergoing treatment, she can make adjustments to ensure your comfort and safety throughout your treatment.
What Conditions Can Compression Therapy Treat?
Because compression therapy helps improve blood flow and circulation, it can be used to treat a variety of conditions, including:
Edema
Edema causes swelling in the hands, feet, ankles, and legs due to the accumulation of excess fluid. This condition can be caused by many things, such as injury, infection, or pregnancy. When someone has edema, their tissues can’t get rid of excess fluid as quickly as it accumulates, leading to excessive buildup.
To treat edema, Dr. Mimi Lee may prescribe compression stockings or bandages. The treatment helps to reduce swelling by decreasing the amount of fluid that accumulates in the tissues.
Lymphedema
Lymphedema causes swelling in the arms or legs. This condition often occurs when there is a problem with the lymphatic system, which is responsible for draining excess fluid from the body. When someone has lymphedema, they may experience aching, heaviness, and tightness in their arms or legs. If left untreated, lymphedema may lead to infection and even death.
By applying pressure to your skin and tissues, compression therapy can reduce swelling caused by lymphedema. The treatment also helps move lymph fluids through your body to prevent further swelling.
Venous Insufficiency
Venous insufficiency occurs when the veins cannot pump enough blood back to the heart. Damage to the veins, blockages, and problems with the muscles that help push blood through the veins can cause this condition. Venous insufficiency can cause the skin to become swollen and discolored. Pain and fatigue are also common symptoms.
Compression therapy helps improve blood flow and reduce swelling in patients who have venous insufficiency. The therapy can also help prevent the development of new varicose veins.
Deep Vein Thrombosis
Deep vein thrombosis occurs when a blood clot forms in one of the deep veins in the body, usually in the leg. The clot can restrict blood flow and cause pain, swelling, and redness in the area. If left untreated, the clot can move to other parts of the body, such as the lungs, where it can cause a pulmonary embolism.
Compression bandages may be worn to help prevent blood clots that can lead to deep vein thrombosis. The therapy can also help break up existing blood clots by improving blood flow.
Arthritis
Arthritis is a common condition that results in inflammation and pain in the joints. Age, history of injury, or infection are risk factors for arthritis. When you have this illness, you might suffer from limited mobility and find it challenging to perform everyday activities. But by wearing compression wraps, you may find relief from inflammation and pain, making it easier for you to participate in daily activities.
Sports Injuries
Many athletes sustain sports injuries due to overuse, impact, and trauma. These injuries may cause pain, swelling, and limited movement. To reduce swelling and promote healing, people with sports injuries may wear compression bandages or wraps as prescribed by a medical professional.
Muscle Fatigue
Muscle fatigue is often caused by overuse of muscles, dehydration, or lack of oxygen to the muscles. When you have muscle fatigue, your muscles may feel tired and heavy, and you may have difficulty using them.
To treat muscle fatigue, you may wear compression bandages to increase blood flow and oxygen levels in your muscles. Compression can help restore and improve your muscle’s ability to produce energy and recover quickly.
Post-Surgical Swelling
Post-surgical swelling is caused by the accumulation of fluid in the tissues surrounding the surgical site. This condition can cause the affected area to become swollen and tender. The most common ways to treat post-surgical swelling include getting rest, using ice packs, wearing compression bandages, and elevating the affected area.
Alleviate Your Symptoms and Live Your Best Life
Compression therapy offers many benefits, from reducing swelling and pain to improving blood circulation. Dr. Mimi Lee can treat many conditions using this therapy. If you suffer from pain, swelling, and inflammation, contact Mimi Lee, MD in Little Rock, AR for treatment. She will provide you with care, guidance, and all the support you need to live your best life!
6 Ways Compression Garments Help Healing After Plastic Surgery
Plastic surgery is a controlled and purposeful injury to the body. And because your body is being injured, you need to allow it to heal. While any surgical procedure will carry side effects, such as bruising, swelling, discomfort, and tenderness, your recovery period can be helped by wearing a prescribed compression garment.
Compression garments are elastic bindings worn after surgery to promote healing. They are worn on the part of the body that underwent the cosmetic surgery .
While some bindings fit over a large part of your body, almost like an entire suit worn under your clothing, other garments are smaller in size, simply securing the specific surgical area.
And while compression garments may seem to be a hassle, it is important to understand the impact they have on your recovery.
Below are six ways that wearing a compression garment can help you in your postsurgical journey.
1. Reduce Swelling
Whether you undergo a breast procedure, such as breast augmentation surgery or breast lift surgery , or a body procedure like a tummy tuck , thigh lift surgery , liposuction , or a butt augmentation , you will have swelling in the area during the weeks after your surgery.
A compression garment helps to limit the amount of swelling and the duration of that swelling by placing continued pressure on the surgical area.
2. Reduce Pain
The same pressure from the compression garment that helps reduce swelling also helps limit the amount of pain that you feel in the surgical area. It’s the same as when you stub your toe; as soon as it happens, you grab your toe and hold it tightly, which takes away the pain. This constant pressure from the compression garment allows you to feel more comfortable while your body heals itself.
3. Provide Support
Whether you’ve had plastic surgery on your breasts or somewhere else, your body, both inside and outside, has gone through a tremendous ordeal. One of the body’s natural reactions is to protect itself, but this sometimes leads to unsightly inconsistencies in your appearance, like lumping and sagging in the skin.
To help you achieve your desired results, you need to stabilize your newly sculpted contours. The compression garment does this by holding your skin and internal tissues and muscles in place while they heal.
4. Increase Circulation and Blood Flow
Compression garments raise the skin temperature, which increases blood flow and circulation. This promotes healing because the increased blood flow brings oxygen-rich blood to the surgical area, which helps the body recover and allows the muscles in the specific area to relax. The elevated skin temperature is also what helps to lessen swelling and minimize pain.
5. Protects Incisions
With any invasive plastic surgery, you will have incisions that have been closed, either with sutures, surgical tape, or glue. While these incisions are closed, they are still actively healing, which means that you want to protect them. You don’t want to accidentally catch the sides of the incision on something, like clothing, and have the incision open back up.
To protect against this, compression garments act like band-aids, covering the parts of your skin that have been opened and then closed again and helping with overall healing.
6. Reduces Risk of Blood Clots
Though rare, blood clot development is a risk with any surgery. Blood clots form when the blood thickens into a mass, which usually happens after an injury, and since plastic surgery is a purposeful injury, the blood in your body tries to protect and heal. However, this is not always the safest thing for you.
Because compression garments increase the blood flow in your veins, you will have less risk of blood pooling and clotting in response to the injury. This is important because blood clots are a very dangerous concern. Fortunately, with your compression garment, you can rest easy knowing that your body is safely recovering from your plastic surgery procedure.
Want to Learn More?
If you are interested in learning more about the plastic surgery procedures that Dr. Chin offers in Fresno, California, schedule a consultation by calling 559-435-9654 or filling out our online contact form .
How Does Compression Help with Swelling?
No doubt you’ve seen athletes wearing them – super tight-fitting clothing, sleeves and gloves thought to reduce soreness, help muscles heal and enhance performance. In addition to helping athletes, compression is also used to help treat many medical conditions. So how does compression help with swelling? There are many types of compression garments such as socks, gloves and stockings that are commonly used to help control lymphedema and relieve pain and swelling. In addition to garments- compression sleeves, splints and braces also help with pain and swelling from arthritis, repetitive stress injuries, plantar fasciitis, carpal tunnel syndrome and other conditions.
What Is Compression?
The word compression means “to press together”. And that is exactly what compression garments do—they “squeeze”. Graduated compression works by providing the greatest amount of compression in the section of the garment that is farthest away from the heart and the least amount of compression in the section closest to the heart. For example, in compression socks, the greatest amount of compression would be in the ankle and the least in the calf. This type of compression helps to fight the effects of gravity and assists the body in venous return or deoxygenated blood flowing back up to the heart.
- Compression may also help with plantar fasciitis—that burning, stabbing pain felt across the bottom of your foot. Protecting your foot with a compression sleeve can help your “fascia” heal more quickly by increasing circulation. The FS6 Compression Foot Sleeverelieves pain and can be worn day or night.
- If you have arthritis in your knee, runner’s knee or other knee instability conditions the KS7 Compression Knee Sleevehelps to provide medical grade compression to boost circulation and reduce swelling and inflammation.
Although the jury is still out on what compression can actually do and at what level the pressure has to be to be effective, compression products can help reduce swelling and increase blood circulation– helping you to feel better as you heal.
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