Compression Stockings?

[Lukie]

Does anyone have experience with this?

http://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/Com...a1931.html

[Airstream]

First I've heard of this one.
I am wondering what the physiological connection may be, that is, how does the compression (pushing blood from the lower body to upper organs) affect apnea symptoms? Does it make your lungs function more efficiently?

[PaytonA]

Does anyone have experience with this?

http://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/Com...a1931.html

I can try this out easily since I wear compression stockings during the day. It will be a few days before I try it because I just made another change that I want to give a few more days. It looked good the first night.

I will try wearing the compression stockings at night in a few days and let you know what happens.

PaytonA

[trish6hundred]

I hadn't heard of this either, not quite sure what this is supposed to do.

[me50]

Does anyone have experience with this?

http://www.steadyhealth.com/articles/Com...a1931.html

I can try this out easily since I wear compression stockings during the day. It will be a few days before I try it because I just made another change that I want to give a few more days. It looked good the first night.

I will try wearing the compression stockings at night in a few days and let you know what happens.

PaytonA

It isn't a good idea to wear compression stockings all day and night for a variety of reasons. Also, I would think that it would require compression stockings that go all the way up to the top of your legs and not just to the knees.

[GrammaBear]

I can only speak for myself but I wear medical compression stockings that are 'thigh-high'. When the vein doctor prescribed them for me, he told me not to wear them at night - just during the day. His reason was that "your skin needs to breathe at night". That is the reason I don't wear them during the night. I do wear them on average of 10-12 hrs a day.

[me50]

What GrammaBear said. They can cause your skin to break down if worn 24/7.

[Peter_C]

I can say that after both my knee replacement, and my hip replacement, I wore thigh-highs at night for 3-4 weeks straight - was not looking for changes in my OSA, but none slapped me in the face either.

I wear knee-high compression socks randomly for 4-5 nights at a time, including twice during this period of data-logging (with oximeter), so I went back through my data, both for the nights wearing them, and for 2-3 nights after stopping - and again, nothing sticks out in anyway that I can notice.

So it either doesn't work for me, or I did not wear the correct type for long enough?

[robysue]

All I can say is the accuracy of the rest of the article was questionable. Among things that I caught and question the accuracy of:

1) A tone that made it sound as though surgery is the preferred way to treat OSA and that CPAP is considered a second rate treatment instead of the gold standard treatment.

2) A uniquely negative view of the potential problems with CPAP that borders on the comical:

Looking a little like scuba gear to be worn to bed, the machines can dry out the throat and sinuses and incubate upper respiratory infections as well as irritate the skin and scare away bed partners.

Scare away bed partners???? And incubate upper respiratory infections??? Most of the folks I know have fewer upper respiratory infections after starting PAP than they had when their OSA was still untreated.

3) Then there was this interesting juxtaposition of sentences:

In the USA, people with sleep apnea may spend tens of thousands of dollars on medical treatments that do not work.

Surgery and CPAP are not the only interventions for sleep apnea. Breathe-Right strips, tennis balls sewed into pillows, didgeridoo lessons, and vocalization exercises all have been tried as treatments for obstructive sleep apnea, with varying degrees of success.

The first sentence is true: Way too much money is spent by Americans trying to fix their OSA without using a CPAP. But look at that list of things that are listed as possible interventions, with the implication that they work in enough cases to be considered valid medical ways of treating OSA: The only one that's accepted is the tennis balls trick, and that's only considered appropriate if the OSA is almost 100% positional. And oddly enough, prescription oral appliances, which can be effective is left off that list.

4) Then there's the description of the study itself:

Researchers at the chronic venous insufficiency clinic at the Clinique La Pitié-Salpêtrière in Paris, led by Dr. Stefania Redolfi of the University of Brescia in Italy, fitted a group of sleep apnea sufferers with compression stockings they wore for a week, followed by a one-night visit to the polysomography clinic to monitor sleep apnea. The test subjects then went a week without wearing the stockings and came back for a second monitoring session. A second group of test subjects were also tested in two sessions, wearing the stockings during the second week rather than the first.

The researchers found that stockings reduced nighttime swelling of leg veins by 62%, and also reduced nighttime swelling in the neck by 60%. The number of breathless episodes per night was reduced by 36%.

No mention of the severity of the test patients' OSA. No mention of whether these people were using a CPAP before the experiment. If they were, then discontinuing it right before wearing the stockings could skew the results in favor of the stockings. In the studies I've read that use patients who regularly use CPAPs, the patients are often, but not always asked to quit the CPAP for a few days to a week before the study begins, just to make sure the apnea has had a chance to deteriorate to the patient's normal untreated OSA before starting the treatment.

But the most glaring thing in my opinion is acting as though a 36% reduction in the number of apneas was enough to be considered an effective treatment. If you have an AHI of even as little as 23, a 36% reduction in AHI still leaves you with an AHI >= 15, the boarder of "moderate" sleep apnea, which routinely gets you an invite to join the hosehead club ...

[DeepBreathing]

^^^^^. Agree entirely