![]() ![]() There were dozens of pairs to choose from, of different heights and pressure ratings, but they were almost all solid black or nude. ![]() Instead, I took careful measurements of the circumference of my feet, my ankles, my calves, according to instructions I found online (buy the socks too big and there’s no point, too small and they cut off circulation) and then headed to a medical-supply store on the Upper East Side as though I were shopping for a bespoke suit.Īmid the walkers and shower stools and adult diapers, the compression socks had half an aisle to themselves. But I wasn’t going to have some novelty-hosiery company compressing me. You could go silky and sleek or vaguely sporty. You can find any number of designs online: argyle compression socks, or polka-dot compression socks, or patriotic compression socks. But it appeared that, if I wanted to wear the heels, I would first have to wear this serious-sounding medical device, usually indicated for the bedridden, the elderly, the pregnant.Ĭompression socks are often marketed as “travel socks” and disguised to look like normal socks. I’d heard of compression socks as a remedy for deep-vein thrombosis, a condition that seemed as abstract and distant to me as amnesia or face blindness. I turned to Google, which insisted that the way to prevent one’s feet from swelling on long-haul flights is to wear compression socks on the plane. I hoped to wear a pair of shiny red heels, but then I pictured my feet as I knew they would be after the flight-as round and peg-like as a baby elephant’s. Still, I thought little of the problem until a couple of years later, when I was planning what to wear to a friend’s wedding in South Africa. I looked at my grandmother, sitting in a wheelchair, her feet permanently inflated like two dainty balloons: a vision of my genetic destiny. The swelling was still there the next morning, and the morning after that. The bone structure of my ankle had been swallowed in flesh. The slope of my instep was as smooth and soft as a freshly fluffed pillow. Now, getting off the plane, I noticed that my feet had become distinctly puffy. I’d been making this journey all my life, with no physical consequences. It’s a phenomenon that I first encountered on a trip to India with my mother, to visit relatives, several years ago. They work by countering hydrostatic pressure in the wearer’s legs-that is, the bulging of the veins and tissues caused by fluid that’s been pulled down to the extremities and can’t get up. Tightest near the ankle, but still pretty tight up top. On paper, there’s not much to them: they’re very tight socks. during the First World War and patented the car sunroof, but compression socks, which he invented around 1950, were his flagship achievement. He also developed precision gun sights for the U.S. Modern compression socks were invented by Conrad Jobst, a dashing German engineer who lived in Toledo, Ohio, and suffered from varicose veins. ![]()
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