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| My feet, before and after Manual Lymph Drainage and wrapping Images copyright Pamela Vireday, April 2017. Please ask permission before using. |
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.
I'm glad you had a positive experience with MLD for your lipedema!
ReplyDeleteI recently discovered your wonderful blog and read all six of your Lipedema posts at once. I am so grateful for your impeccable research, intuition, empathy, and sacrifice of time. You should be paid for this content and should be speaking around the world to women like us. As I teeter between Stage 2 and 3 and now have such thick knees that the only thing I can wear is a pair of horrible polyester stretchy pants, I am utterly paralyzed by self-pity and shame.What do you mean there is no cure?! I have become a complete recluse upon realizing that my friends' would sooner rescue from the gutter from a heroine addiction than forgive me for being fat. I have spent a fortune trying all the wrong things or things that worked for a moment, endermologie, G5, old school liposuction that damamged my lymph and even being duped into painful venous ablation by some cunning cardiologist as the cause for my thick, swollen legs. But like you, I have a ton of theories. First, the pear shaped body occurs in very specific geographic areas, Eastern Europe, and Sub Saharan Africa, Brazil....some cultures are definitely more predisposed. I have Eastern Hungarian ancestry. The ancetral diet is dominated by wheat, dairy and processed meats high in salt. Gluten must play a role. Secondly, I believe A blood type are most vulnerable, we have a slugglish digestive system and a sluggish lymph. Thirdly, if estrogen makes it worse then free testosterone treatment should make it better. Lastly, far better than copmpression or skin brushing, I have found vegetable juicing fasts for 7 days at a time to help reduce swelling in my legs almost completely. I will never be able to afford the WAL Lipo treatement since all the experts are in the United States and I am in SOuth Africa where the dollar might s well be Pluto, but this horrible thing has to be exposed, mainstreamed and must be taken seriously by the medical fraternity. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
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