An elderly friend of mine has been wearing an Unna Boot. Other than his obvious obesity I don’t know what his ailment is, but I do know it was causing him chronic pain. He’s advised me to make sure I never have to wear an Unna Boot. I had to look it up, never had heard of it before.
I don’t want to pry by asking him for details (don’t know him quite well enough for that); Can anybody suggest what discomfort (or even pain) such a bandage might cause?
more details at Unna's boot - Wikipedia
The dressing may not be painful, but the condition that led to its use is probably painful and hard to treat.
Sometimes the situations that necessitate the unna boot aren’t painful but are simply annoying. Several years ago severe lymphedema in my calves caused significant swelling. The lymph fluid was not draining properly. I had the misfortune one night of running one calf into the end of a bedframe, which caused quite a wound. It wasn’t really painful because of the swelling, but it was bleeding and leaking lymph.
The swelling from the lymphedema made the skin on my calf so tight that the ER could not stitch the wound. I had to have the unna boot applied to essentially squeeze the lymph out of my calf and loosen up the skin layers so the wound would heal naturally. It took around 2-3 weeks for the wound to heal, and in that span probably a reapplication of the unna boot every 2-3 days.
It took several years for the lymph nodes near my knees to start functioning properly again, to drain lymph as intended, and I became proficient at applying the unna boot myself because for some reason I had a habit of running into things.
Missed edit window.
As said upthread, the unna boot isn’t meant to be painful itself, but when it’s applied, it’s not just snug, it’s tight so it can squeeze. The bandages that are used are designed to tighten as the swelling decreases. I suppose if you’re elderly and have little muscle tone, that could be painful.