Tag Archives: lymphedmia

Hooray, it’s Lymphedema Awareness Day !

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Today is Lymphedema Awareness Day. Please visit our webpage at www.LymphedemaDepot.com  to read our article on what you can do to help raise awareness of lymphedema in your community, your circle of friends and relations, or even raise your own awareness about this chronic swelling condition.

If you do nothing else, make today the day you join your provincial lymphedema organization. Our Lymphedema Awareness web page provides links to these wonderful, volunteer-driven associations.

If you are a lymphedema patient, today is a good day to make an appointment for a manual lymph drainage treatment from your therapist. If you have not had treatment for your lymphedema, today is a great day to take that first step toward getting treatment. Our Links page at www.LymphedemaDepot.com/links has links to organizations, information resources and lymphedema therapist directories.

Lymphedema Awareness Day is a also a great day to realise and celebrate how far the lymphedema treatment movement has come. Awareness of lymphedema is higher than ever, there are more therapists than ever and there are more products than ever to help treat and manage lymphedema and related conditions. There are still a host of challenges for lymphedema patients are care-providers, but the amount of progress that has been made is remarkable.

We define the lymphedema community as everybody who is involved in this work. That means patients, the families and friends of patients,  therapists, researchers, doctors, nurses, vendors, organisers, volunteers, writers, product sales people, product developers, lymphedema educators, publishers and speakers. Everybody whose life is touched by lymphedema, lipedema or other chronic swelling conditions is a member of this community. Take Lymphedema Awareness Day to celebrate that we have this community for support and that we are all pushing for progress!

http://www.lymphedemadepot.com/lymphedema_awareness/.

Introducing Channel Foam

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Our clinical specialist, John Mulligan, RMT/CLT-LANA, visited the Földi Clinic in the summer of 2011 and found the therapists there using foam they called Wave Foam as padding underneath their bandaging. It was a channeled foam of medium density and it had a dramatic effect on fibrotic tissue.

Inspired by the Földi therapists and their ingenuity, we wanted to make this unique and effective padding foam available to Canadian therapists.

Lymphedema Depot is happy to present our new Channel Foam. This convolute grey foam is a half inch thick with quarter inch thick channels cut through it. These peaks and channels create high and low pressure zones and encourage lymphatic flow in a distal to proximal direction while also sinking into and softening fibrotic tissue.

Our Channel Foam comes in 2’ x 3’ sheets which, like our flat sheets of therapeutic grey foam, can be custom cut for individual patients to create the right shape and size needed for incorporatioin into a multi-layer bandage application. We are confident that this new foam will find a place in lymphedema practices all over Canada.

Therapists can order this foam directly from Lymphedema Depot by using the ordering form found on this page: http://www.lymphedemadepot.com/products/sheetfoam.  Simply click on the thumbnail picture of the order sheet at the bottom of the page.

Lymphedema Depot offers grey foam in several thicknesses to be used as padding in multi-layer lymphedema bandaging as well as the new Channel Foam. Foam padding is an essential element of multilayer lymphedema bandaging as it works to disperse the concentric rings of pressure caused by overlapping short stretch bandaging. This evenly dispersed pressure allows the multi-layer bandage to create a consistent compression gradient throughout the length of the limb.

For more information about grey foam or the Solaris line of therapeutic garments (Tribute, Caresia, ReadyWrap and Swell Spots) available from Lymphedema Depot in Canada, please visit our website at www.LymphedemaDepot.com or email us at info@LymphedemaDepot.com.

Alberta Bound

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Earlier in  November I had the pleasure of making a trip to Alberta to attend the Alberta Lymphedema Association’s Lymphedema Education Session for Garment Fitters. Karen Van Heyst, a physiotherapist and certified lymphedema therapist, spoke to a group of nearly 20 compression garment fitters. Lymphedema Depot was on hand to introduce this extraordinary group of Calgary fitters to the Solaris line of therapeutic garments. The Tribute, Caresia, ReadyWrap and Swell Spots were well-received by the group.

ALA President Diane Martin and the rest of the Alberta Lymphedema Association are to be commended for producing this ground-breaking event. Compression garment fitters are a crucial link in the supply chain of providing appropriate compression garments to patients living with lymphedema and related disorders, yet they rarely get specialised training in understanding the condition of lymphedema.This evening was a great example of what can be done to remedy that situation. We hope to see more events like this as other regions adopt the practice of presenting this crucial information to compression garment fitters.

To learn more about the Alberta Lymphedema Association visit their website at http://www.albertalymphedema.com.

To learn more about Lymphedema Depot and the Solaris line of therapeutic garments for the management of lymphedema, lipedema, chronic venous insufficiency and related disorders, visit our website at www.LymphedemaDepot.com.