Compression

In my last post a few weeks ago, I briefly mentioned compression. I felt it deserved a posting itself to discuss the importance of its use in pain relief. Nearly all joints that hurt or people report arthritis are synovial joints, which means it has synovial fluid. The part that actually hurts is the joint capsule because it has innervation(nerve endings) and is being stretched by the excess fluid. Imagine a sack of fluid in between each bone in your body, then fill one up so that the walls are straining with every step you take to hold the fluid within that joint(No Wonder It Hurts). The body’s reaction to an injury or wear is to increase blood flow to the area for healing, consequently that blood also creates increased synovial fluid in your joints and the cycle continues. Most commonly it is named arthritis or osteoarthritis, which simply means inflammation of the joint. Another point of interest is that only 5 milliliters of fluid is needed to inhibit the neuromuscular junction, that just means fluid stops your nerves from firing muscles- making you weaker. The weakness causes poor traction/alignment of that joint with a cycle back to increased arthritis and pain.

This is where compression comes in to break the cycle. Using a compression garment on the joint in question can reduce the amount of fluid that accumulates by supporting that wall and causing fluid to escape to areas of less pressure(ie. return to the blood stream). Chronic conditions such as arthritis or degenerative joint issues might cause confusion because they do not swell like an acute condition(ie. sprain), but they have a controlled amount of inflammation that still are alleviated with compression. With compression sleeves you have increased strength due to reduced swelling in the muscle, reduced swelling in the joint, and on top of that a sensation which gaits pain in the brain(more on that later). I recommend you wear the brace most of every day, especially whenever you notice increased swelling during a certain activity. Most compression sleeves are made of neoprene and velcro, therefore I recommend finding a cheap brace/garment that you replace often due to its loss of elasticity over time. I have created a page with links to amazon for compression garments of the most common joints in the body, Click Here.