Manual Lymph Drainage and Bandaging --- Does It Work?

My feet, before and after Manual Lymph Drainage and wrapping
Images copyright Pamela Vireday, April 2017. Please ask permission before using. 

After many years of stage 2 and 3 lipedema, a serious health crisis recently propelled me into stage 4 lipo-lymphedema, where the body cannot dispose of its lymph fluids properly.

This led me to try some manual lymph drainage and bandaging to see if that could help the lipo-lymphedema.

It did. It wasn't a miracle cure but it did help, as you can see in the pictures.

The process starts out with a soft cotton stocking, then the leg gets wrapped in more padding..

Then the bandaging continues with special bandages until it's all covered.

You leave this on for a day to two days. This is the hard part. You want to take it off! It's restrictive but not too bad, fortunately. It's just hard to be patient.

Then you take it off for the final reveal. Here you can see how different in size the two feet are after treatment. Huge difference, if it it's not obvious in the pictures. I recently had the second foot done to help it reduce too.

Has it been worth the trouble of treatment? Yes, it has in my situation. I am much more comfortable now than before. Has the treatment maintained itself? Yes, to some degree. Some edema has returned but most has not and I'm still better off than I was before the treatment.

It's up to you whether or not to try this therapy, and it's not a miracle cure, it should be noted. To get best benefit, you should use compression stockings on it afterwards. However, even by itself it is helpful and that may be worthwhile to you.

It's another tool for the lipedema toolbox.