Normatec compression pants are a type of intermittent pneumatic compression (IPC) device. The device uses cuffs around the legs to provide and release pressure throughout your legs. Its goal is to improve the circulation of blood flow within the veins in the legs. Veins carry de-oxygenated blood from your body back to your heart.
What IPC can be useful for:
- Recent surgery causing swelling and inflammation, and in some cases blood clotting
- Limited mobility due to injury or stroke
- Prevention of Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT)
- Inherited blood disorders that may cause blood clotting
- Lower limb oedema due to pregnancy
- Reducing swelling in lymphoedema
- Reducing DOMS post-workout
The veins in your legs have tiny valves that help keep blood moving back up toward the heart. A DVT may damage one or more of these valves, causing them to become leaky. When this happens, blood starts to pool in your legs. This can also happen if you are immobile for a long period of time. This can cause blood to flow very slowly through the veins, increasing the risk that cells in the blood will stick together and form a clot.
If you have any of the following conditions, you are not to use IPC devices:
- Non-pitting chronic lymphedema
- Known or suspected deep vein thrombosis
- Pulmonary embolism
- Thrombophlebitis
- Acute inflammation of the skin (erysipelas, cellulitis)
- Uncontrolled/severe cardiac failure
- Pulmonary edema
- Ischemic vascular disease
- Active metastatic diseases affecting the edematous region
- Oedema at the root of the extremity or truncal edema
- Severe peripheral neuropathy
