Everything You Need To Know About Compression Gloves & Arthritis Gloves
These comfy little gloves can reduce your hand pain and inflammation!
Compression Gloves for arthritis, commonly known as arthritis gloves, are small, fingerless gloves that fit tightly and comfortably. The gloves are designed to boost hand circulation, reduce hand pain, and diminish joint inflammation. Anyone with hand arthritis could benefit greatly by wearing a pair of compression gloves.
We Rely On Our Hands
We use our hands for everything, from getting dressed to eating and drinking. We use them to take care of our children. Just imagine if your hands didn’t work, or if they ached all day long. Unfortunately, disabilities like hand arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, carpal tunnel, neuropathy, or trigger finger make simple, everyday tasks difficult to complete. With that being said, failure to get simpler things done may make you feel distressed.
Although many of these hand issues don’t go away and often get worse over time, there is a way to manage them! Compression gloves were specifically designed to improve circulation in your hands and provide them with more support to increase their range of motion.
Healthier blood flow reduces inflammation and swelling, decreases stiffness of the hand joints, reduces hand pain, and generally improves your hand’s healing process. With so many benefits of wearing compression gloves, almost anyone suffering from a hand disorder could benefit from compression gloves.
The Best Compression Gloves are Soft & Comfy
For arthritis gloves to really work their magic, you need to wear them for at least 8 hours at a time. So, as you’d imagine, you’ll really want your compression gloves to be both comfy and soft. It’s a good thing many compression gloves are made of super soft cotton and spandex!
Not only are they soft, but they have just the right amount of tightness and elasticity to fit your hands! The gloves should be machine-washable, since you’ll be wearing them all day and all night. The material should also be breathable. These features are what makes compression gloves so compatible with those suffering from a hand disorder. They’re so comfortable, eight hours will fly by!
Keep in mind, this should be true whether you’re looking for;
- compression gloves for carpal tunnel,
- compression gloves for arthritis,
- compression gloves for swelling (we’ll get to that in a minute),
- compression fingerless gloves (which we recommend), or
- copper compression gloves.
In each case, the gloves should be as comfortable and soft as possible, otherwise, you’re not going to want to wear them all day or all night. For these miraculous gadgets to work, you need to sport them for hours at a time.
How Do Compression Gloves Actually Work?
Compression gloves apply pressure to your hands. The gloves gently squeeze your veins, reducing their cross-sectional area. This is what causes your blood flow to steadily increase.
Blood flow to your hands triggers their healing process.The increased blood flow also eradicates their toxins, delivering much-needed nutrients to your hands! Studies have shown that this all leads to a decrease in hand pain (yay!), a decrease in inflammation and swelling of the hands and joints, a decrease in hand stiffness, and an increase in range of motion of the hand. Some people have also commented that compression gloves leave their hands feeling warmer.
And remember, you want your compression gloves to be tight. But, not so tight that your fingers turn purple. The gloves should fit snug, and be comfortable enough to wear for longer periods of time.
Here’s a chart on how to measure your hand to get the best fit for a compression glove or arthritis glove!
Heat
Compression gloves can come with a heating option to provide heat therapy to your hands. The heat therapy can lessen your hand pain because heat, like compression itself, can increase blood flow, which increases healing of our hands. Not to mention, warm, soft compression gloves are SOO comfy!
Splints
Splints are strips of firm material that support stiff and immobilized joints. When your hand is physically supported by splints, then you’re able to increase the movement of fingers, thumb, and wrist without having to support any painful movements! Naturally, this results in increased range of motion.
Copper Compression Gloves
Many people prefer copper compression gloves, also called copper gloves or copper fit compression gloves. Copper compression gloves combine pure copper metal into the lining of the compression glove to provide 2 additional benefits.
- Copper gloves have a slew of benefits! To name a few, copper metal has out of this world anti-microbial properties, so the copper compression glove can help keep your hands clean!
- People have suggested that the copper ions help to further increase blood flow, which can enhance the healing properties of the compression glove! Although studies have not yet confirmed this claim, many suggest they’ve experienced milder pain and discomfort after wearing them.
Compression Gloves for Carpal Tunnel
Carpal tunnel syndrome results in numbness, tingling, or weakness in your hand or arm, though it’s usually felt in the thumb and index finger. The disorder is caused by pressure or irritation on the median nerve. The median nerve runs from the neck area, down through the shoulder, down into the arm, and then through the carpal tunnel in the wrist. If any sort of pressure is applied to this nerve during its journey, it can cause carpal tunnel syndrome.
Routine activities such as holding an utensil or buttoning your shirt will become challenging. Irritated nerves and tendons may swell the tunnel's lining, compressing the median nerve further. This tends to cause numbness in the wrist and palm of your hand.
Compression gloves can help relieve some symptoms associated with carpal tunnel because of the increased blood flow and healing, but the compression gloves for carpal tunnel will likely not help with the primary cause of carpal tunnel, which is nerve compression.
Compression Gloves for Arthritis
Arthritis of the hand is the swelling, inflammation, and tenderness of the joints that trigger pain and stiffness in your hands, fingers, thumb, and wrist. This condition makes the simple everyday activities that we all take for granted, like buttoning a shirt, using a cell phone, or holding a cup of coffee more difficult than it should be.
Compression gloves for arthritis can greatly help your hands feel better when you have arthritis. The compression gloves increase the circulation in your hands, reduce hand pain, reduce stiffness, reduce inflammation and swelling, and they can improve range of motion and grip strength.
Compression Gloves for Swelling
Arthritis can be a pain in your, well, hands. The condition causes inflammation, resulting in a buildup of synovial fluid that thickens the joint tissue in your fingers and wrists. This process, also known as swelling, is painful and makes everyday tasks nearly impossible. Compression gloves are a treat for swollen hands.
They support the circulation in your fingers, preventing your joints from swelling up.
What The Experts Are Saying
Karen Jacobs, a clinical professor at Boston University, highly recommends the gloves.
Jacobs encourages her own patients to wear them, especially when they want to “continue doing everyday activities and hobbies they enjoy.”
How Do I Know If They're Right for Me?
When investing in your health, you always want to be sure you’re making the right decision. If you’re still having doubts about compression gloves, ask yourself these pivotal questions:
- How much is my arthritis/carpal tunnel affecting my daily life?
- How severe is the pain I’m experiencing?
- What is the rate at which my arthritis/carpal tunnel is progressing?
What Can I Expect (Realistically)?
When you first put on a pair of copper fit/compression gloves, they should feel snug, but not uncomfortably so. Compression gloves will prevent inflammation, the primary source of joint pain.
You can expect the gloves to manage that unbearable tingling feeling you’re likely to experience with arthritis.
They Provide Long-Term Benefits
The beauty of the gloves is their ability to make life easier. You can garner strength and mobility back in your hands without the need for major surgery.
At any stage of your hand disorder, wearing compression/copper gloves can stimulate the blood flow to your hands and prevent pain or immobility in the future.
Consistency is Key
In order to reap the benefits of compression/copper gloves, you need to wear them consistently. It’s important to wear the gloves for at least eight hours a day. In fact, many people wear them at night while they sleep, often resulting in less hand stiffness in the morning.
Their soft and cozy comfortability makes it easy to want to keep wearing them!
Bring Back the “Good Old Days”
When left untreated, hand disorders can stop you from doing what you enjoy.
Compression gloves were created to build up the strength in your hands, allowing you to get back to doing what you love and regain your confidence!
Hand care is important so that we can continue doing what's important to us.
Take Back Control
There’s an entire community of people just like you at Capabody Therapy. People who struggle with arthritis or carpal tunnel syndrome and care about their hand health.
Because it’s incurable, many lose hope and don’t take the necessary action to manage the disability.
Compression gloves and copper compression gloves combat the limitations brought on by carpal tunnel, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, neuropathy, or many other hand conditions.
The gloves give you the unique opportunity to enjoy things you once loved to do. Take back control of your life and start living again!
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Sources
- https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/carpal-tunnel-syndrome/symptoms-causes/syc-20355603
- https://www.dignityhealth.org/articles/how-do-arthritis-gloves-work-to-ease-symptoms
- https://orthoinfo.aaos.org/en/diseases--conditions/arthritis-of-the-hand/
- https://www.webmd.com/rheumatoid-arthritis/ra-gloves
- https://www.dignityhealth.org/articles/how-do-arthritis-gloves-work-to-ease-symptoms
- https://creakyjoints.org/living-with-arthritis/how-arthritis-gloves-work/
