As a young girl, walking with my aunt, I saw a woman on the street with one arm twice the size of her other arm. I asked my aunt about it. Her answer…”Don’t stare. You don’t need to know about it.”
Years later, I noticed a woman with a long bandage-like sleeve on one arm. When I asked a friend, a student nurse, about it she told me the bandage, as she called it, was to keep the arm from swelling. She explained that sometimes, after have breast cancer, a woman’s arm would fill up will lymphatic fluid and that is what caused the swelling. Not the most scientific description, but I got the point. In the early 60′s women, even nurses, didn’t talk about breast cancer above a whisper.They certainly didn’t speak of side effects, such as lymphedema.
These days, if a woman gets lymphedema, she no longer has to walk around with an arm covering that looks like a bandage.
So…a working definition of lymphedema before we learn about the care of this condition.
Lymphedema is the accumulation of fluid at or near the site of cancer surgery . In the case of breast cancer, it causes swelling in the hands, the arms, or the chest – as result of a blockage in the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is a network of vessels running the length of the body through which lymphatic fluid travels to protect the body against invaders.
Lymphedema is often described as a painful and chronic swelling of the lymph nodes. It may affect up to 70 percent of women who have undergone surgery or received radiation for breast cancer.
The following post is written by Josh Levin, brother of Rachel Levin Troxell, founder of LympheDIVAs who took over as president of the company after Rachel passed in 2008 of metastatic breast cancer.
Mr. Levin describes the products his company offers to address the need for compression garments to manage the symptoms of lymphedema, such as hand, wrist, arm swelling.
There are several things that that separate our lymphedema product medically from others.
What’s most important to note is that our graduated compression is the same as others. But how it works is something that we’ve made some slight changes to:
1) Gripper Band Our gripper band, called the Diva Diamond Band, is not made of silicone. We know that there is a percentage of the population with this allergy and we chose not to limit their choices. We use a substance called Plastisol, which is hypoallergenic and non-toxic. In addition, many of the other gripper bands are an elastic band with hard dots sewn to the top of the sleeve. This effectively adds a higher band of compression at the top of the sleeve where compression should be less and could potentially act as a tourniquet type effect. We screen print our Diamond Band in a wide pattern to the inside of the sleeve. This helps keep it up, doesn’t affect compression and doesn’t leave a mark in the wearer’s arm.
2) Moisture-Wicking and Breathable. Our garments are made to help keep your arm cool. A cool arm can lead to less capillary flow which can reduce swelling.
3) Fitters and therapists are provided with a chart that can show the compression at each measurement point for any given patient. This ensures that the patient is getting the compression required and that there is enough of a differential between the regions on the arm to help promote the flow of lymphatic fluid.
4) Our gauntlets are made to have nearly no compression at the wrist. This prevents an overlap of compression at that point so that fluid can flow from the hand into the arm.
Editor’s note: Josh supplied me with a compression sleeve to review and share my comments with you. Since I do not have lymphedema, I asked a friend who does to try the sleeve. She found it comfortable and cool to wear.
