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Summer’s here, and hundreds of thousands of travelers are planning to take to the skies to visit far-flung relatives, explore distant lands, and experience new cultures. If a long-haul flight (one that’s five hours or longer) is on your calendar, you may be busy figuring out what to pack — and whether you should wear compression socks while flying.
Many long-distance air travelers can benefit from wearing compression socks, but you should know a few things before giving them a try. Here, our seasoned team at Vascular Vein Centers discusses how these medical garments help protect your health on a long trip.
When you sit in a confined space for hours on end — whether you’re in a car, bus, train, or airplane — the veins in your legs have a hard time circulating blood back to your heart. This is why plenty of people experience mild, lower extremity swelling after long trips.
Essentially, prolonged immobility slows down your blood flow, causing your leg veins to swell under increased internal pressure. For the average healthy person, travel-induced leg swelling tends to be a mild problem that resolves fully within 24 hours after a long flight.
A long-distance journey that keeps you mostly inactive for many hours also heightens your risk of developing deep vein thrombosis (DVT), or a blood clot in a deep, subsurface vein.
Deep vein clots aren’t harmful if they remain in place, but all DVTs have the potential to break free and travel. If a mobile blood clot enters one of your lungs, it can cause a life-threatening pulmonary embolism (PE) that requires emergency medical treatment.
Research shows that a long-haul flight can make DVT up to four times more likely. At the same time, however, travel-induced DVTs remain relatively rare: Further studies show that the risk of DVT occurrence within four weeks of a flight that’s four hours or longer is one in 4,600, and for every million flights that last longer than 12 hours, only about five people develop a severe PE.
Though it’s important to recognize that long-distance travel is a significant DVT risk factor for adults of all ages, including younger adults who are otherwise healthy, it’s also important to understand that in most cases, it’s other underlying factors that contribute to creating this “perfect storm” for a blood clot during travel.
Your DVT risk during long-distance travel is higher than average if you have one or more other major DVT risk factors, such as:
Think of your DVT risk like water in a bucket. The more risk factors you have, the fuller your bucket becomes. If you already have a few significant risk factors, a long-haul flight could be the factor that causes your “DVT bucket” to overflow.
Compression socks and stockings are garments that gently squeeze your calves and feet to stimulate and assist lower extremity circulation. Made to hug your leg and hold their shape, these stretchy, snug-fitting socks are available in three types:
These medical-grade garments apply more compression at the foot and gradually less compression as the sock moves up your leg. Graduated compression socks are available by prescription and professionally fitted to your legs.
Designed to help prevent DVT in people with limited mobility — such as someone who’s in a wheelchair — this graduated compression sock is also only available by prescription.
Designed to be more flexible than graduated compression socks, these non-prescription garments offer the same level of compression from toe to calf. They’re widely available at pharmacies and are typically recommended for people seeking relief from tired, achy legs.
Wearing compression socks on a long-haul flight can provide helpful circulation-enhancing benefits for virtually any adult traveler, as long as the chosen garment is well-matched to an individual’s needs.
If you don’t have any circulation issues and your DVT risk is low, for example, non-medical support hosiery is probably the best option. If you have one or more major DVT risk factors, however, it’s best to see our team well in advance of your trip for a vascular evaluation and targeted compression therapy recommendation.
And remember, you can also reduce your DVT risk in-flight by:
To learn more, call or click online to schedule a visit at your nearest Vascular Vein Centers office in College Park of Orlando, Waterford Lakes of East Orlando, Kissimmee, Lake Mary, Davenport/Haines City, or The Villages, Florida, today.
