Superimposed elastic stockings: pressure measurements.

Background: High-compression stockings over 40 mmHg are often difficult or even impossible to apply. A specific technique is frequently used to overcome this problem: a high-compression stocking is replaced by two or even three lower compression stockings that are applied on top of each other, thereby reducing the effort of application. To our knowledge, however, no study concerning therapeutic stockings has demonstrated that the forces exerted by two or three superimposed stockings are additive.