Raynaud’s disease is a common condition, affecting as much as 20% of the global population. Yet, despite the frequency, many people haven’t even heard of Raynaud’s disease.
Basically, the condition impacts your blood supply. When you’re cold, and sometimes when you’re stressed, the blood flow to some parts of your body may be blocked for a little. This can leave you with white and numb fingers or toes.
Some other parts of your body may be affected too, but less often.
While the symptoms aren’t serious, they can be frustrating – particularly when you’re trying to do something with your hands. Caregivers with Raynaud’s may also struggle. After all, you often need to do quite specific time-specific tasks. You don’t want to try and do so when your fingers are numb and aren’t behaving well.
That’s why we’re looking at the best compression gloves for Raynaud’s.
These gloves can be powerful, as they help to keep your hands warm and promote blood flow. Some gloves are also designed to be practical, including compression gloves that you can actually type in. These are perfect for caregivers, as you can still do everything you need to, even while wearing the gloves.
Our Top Picks for Compression Gloves
Thx4COPPER Compression Gloves
These compression gloves are designed for arthritis, but they’re useful for many other conditions too, including Raynaud’s. The gloves are 70% polyester, 20% spandex, and 10% copper.
The spandex in the gloves helps to keep them flexible, while the copper may reflect some heat, helping to keep your hands warm. The strap around the wrist helps to keep the gloves tight.
The gloves go past your knuckles, but don’t cover your entire fingers. This is a useful style, as it gives you plenty of compression, while still leaving your fingers free for practical work.
Thx4Copper Full Compression Gloves
These gloves come from the same brands as the previous ones. There are some differences though, as these gloves don’t have the same strap and they cover your entire hand, rather than stopping part way up the fingers.
The gloves also have a thicker outer layer, which should help to keep the warmth in.
You can even use your phone with the gloves on, as they have touchscreen sensitive pads on the thumb and forefinger.
Full Finger Compression Gloves
Here’s another full finger design. Once again, the gloves include some copper and they’re designed for use with touch screens.
The gloves are also lightweight enough that you should be able to wear them all day.
This particular brand provides four different glove sizes. This is helpful, as the glove needs to fit your hands well to be effective.
Duerer Arthritis Compression Gloves
Compression gloves tend to come in black and gray, so it’s refreshing to find a company that offers other colors as well, including purple, red, and brown.
The gloves are simpler than most and don’t contain copper, but this helps to keep the price down. Besides, sometimes simple is all you need. The gloves are also popular and often get excellent reviews.
Copper Infused Extra Long Gloves
These gloves contain copper, but that’s not their most interesting feature.
The length is what makes the gloves stand out. While most gloves stop at your wrist, these ones go all the way down to your elbows, giving you additional support and warmth.
They also have the same half finger design that we’ve seen in other gloves, which gives you freedom of movement, while still reducing Reynaud’s symptoms. In fact, having most of your hands covered like this may be enough to stop the exposed parts of your fingers from losing circulation.
Dr. Arthritis Compression Gloves
Here’s another set of gloves with copper. These ones go higher than most others, leaving only the tips of the fingers free.
There are also more sizes to choose from, including small, medium, large, x-large, and even xx-large. There are two colors – black and light pink.
These gloves (and all the ones from this company) were designed by medical professionals and come with a handbook. They’re designed to be comfortable and resilient, allowing you to use them over and over again.
The biggest problem is color – there are only black versions of these gloves. Still, that’s just an aesthetic difference. It doesn’t impact the usefulness of the gloves.
How to Choose the Best Gloves
There are a few things to think about when looking at these gloves.
Think About the Length
First, what length to you want?
Gloves that cover your fingers will be more warming than those that don’t. However, the more your fingers are covered, the less flexibility you’ll have with your hands.
To find the right glove, you’ll need to think about what you’ll be using the gloves for.
If you’re doing a lot of fine finger movements, you may need shorter gloves. If this isn’t the case, full finger gloves could be fine.
Choose the Right Size
The size of your glove makes a huge difference. If the glove is a poor fit, it won’t give you enough compression and may make your hands difficult to use.
Don’t just rely on terms like ‘small’, ‘medium’, and ‘large’ here. Instead, look for companies that include sizing charts and use these to determine which glove size to order.
You’ll need to double check the sizing for each company, as sizes are sometimes defined very differently. Companies also differ in where they want you to measure.
If you’re struggling to measure your hand, try outlining it on a piece of paper first.
Think About the Material
The material of your gloves will influence their usefulness too.
Many people go for thin compression gloves, as these are perfect for any task you need to do, including typing and cooking. Thicker gloves might be helpful if you’re going outside or are sitting still in a cold room.
Other Gloves for Raynaud’s
Compression gloves aren’t the only approach. You can also use gloves to keep your hands warm or heat them back up.
Most of these are bulky, so they’re not gloves you can work in. However, they can be useful when you’re relaxing or before you go to bed. Here are a few exciting options:
- Savior Heat Heated Gloves. These are designed for skiing, so they’re large and clunky. They are also heated, using a rechargeable electric system. You can adjust the temperature using a thermal control and use the pully string and buckle to adjust the size of the glove.
- Heated Arthritis Mittens. You can’t do much at all while wearing these mittens, but you’re not meant to either. Instead, they’re designed to be comforting and warm your hands. They have a lavender scent too, which makes them excellent at night.
- You can also turn to regular warm gloves, like Trendoux Winter Gloves. Such gloves will keep your hands warm and help with circulation. Many are designed to promote movement too, so you can still complete your tasks around the home.
Other Ways to Improve Raynaud’s Symptoms
Compression gloves for Raynaud’s aren’t the only way to improve your symptoms. Some approaches that help your whole body are powerful as well.
Keep Yourself Warm
Just keeping your hands warm isn’t enough. You need to focus on the rest of your body as well.
You may even find that if the rest of you is warm, you don’t need gloves as well. This could be incredibly helpful if you find that compression gloves restrict your movement too much.
Exercise Regularly
Exercise is critical for keeping your health. It also helps with Raynaud’s by decreasing your stress and improving blood flow.
Exercise doesn’t need to be difficult or complicated either. There are plenty of approaches you can try from the comfort of your own home, like bopping along to a Zumba video or using resistance bands.
There are also plenty of Zoom-based exercise classes – perfect for anyone who wants to get moving but can’t easily leave the home.
Find Ways to Lower Stress
Chronic stress is never good for you. It has many concerning effects, including raising your risk of disease and increasing Raynaud’s symptoms.
Stress may be a familiar issue if you’re a caregiver. After all, there are so many things to worry about, plus many demands on your time and energy.
Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to lower your stress levels, including the following approaches. You don’t need to go ‘all in’ on any of these. Even just small changes can be enough to decrease your stress and help with your health.
- Relaxation practices, like yoga and meditation. If you find this area overwhelming, try guided meditation on YouTube. There are even some specifically designed for caregivers.
- Therapy. You don’t need a mental health issue to go to therapy. Most people benefit from at least a few therapy sessions. Often simply talking through your struggles and getting an external perspective is enough to make you feel better.
- Decrease your use of coffee and alcohol. These drinks are often used as quick fixes, but they can make stress worse in the long term.
- Make sure you’re not taking too much on. Caregivers often accept more responsibility than they need to. It can help to look closely at what your parent actually needs, rather than what they want (especially if you’re dealing with a demanding parent).
Don’t Smoke
Smoking is particularly bad news for Raynaud’s sufferers, as it decreases blood flow. Stopping smoking should improve your blood flow and hopefully reduce your symptoms.
If not smoking just isn’t feasible right now, try cutting your smoking down. After all, any decrease is better than none at all.
Final Thoughts
Even the best compression gloves for Raynaud’s won’t cure the condition, but they can make the symptoms much more manageable. It’s helpful to also work on your stress levels and activity at the same time, as Raynaud’s symptoms can be trigged by stress as well as cold.
Want To Make Life Easier?
Check out the caregiving products we love!
Leave a Reply