Back when I was still recovering from cardiac surgery (which I eventually did), and just as I had started undergoing chemotherapy, a cardiovascular nurse compelled me--she was the pushy type--to purchase and use compression stockings.
This was in October. It was starting to get cold here in Nebraska, and I was already wearing three layers of clothing. To put on, and wear, the compression stockings was too much trouble and too uncomfortable, so I quit using them after about, oh, a week, shoving the pair into the back of the top drawer of the dresser.
In April, I began developing lilghtning-like jolts of pan in the legs and arms. The physician presecribed what I call "the gabby pills," Gabapentin, 300mg three times a day. I forgot to remind him that I've proven unusually senstitive to drugs, and that dosage knocked me out better than Cassius Clay could. The physician reined it in, and gave me 100mg one time a day.
That lesser dosage worked; it didn't eliminate all the pain, but it seemed to eliminate the greater part of the pain, so I was satisfied.
Then one day three weeks ago the woman who does my laundry (private pay deal; no part of any insurance-covered home health program) was here, and noticed the pair of compression stockings jammed in the back of the drawer. She admitted she was no medical professional, but wondered if perhaps I used this, they might be better for dealing with neuropathy. I inquired of the hospice people, all of whom said, yeah, it wouldn't hurt and might help.
Because it's summer and I have to wear less cumbersome clothing, I've religiously wore these compression stockings (I now own four pairs) every single day from when I first get up in the morning until I go back to bed in the evening.
Within three days of doing that, there was no pain, zero pain, and curiously not only in the legs where the stockings are worn, but also in the hands and arms, which are not compressed. I quit taking the gabby pills to see what would happen.....and nothing happened. A couple of times, I tried going a day without wearing the stockings, and some--some--pain came back.
However, it seems that as long as I wear them all day long, every day, there's no need for any pills, as the neuropathic pain isn't there.
And odder, in the arms and hands too, where nothing's compressed.
Has anyone else here had such an experience with compression?