Draining The Swamp or...How's your MLD working?

I find MLD works very well to reduce the ache that is my biggest LE symptom.  At the NLN conference, there was some commentary about MLD in a few of the presentations.  One presenter did confirm that there's no evidence it works; others not only endorsed it, but one presenter showed us a video of imaging done while one of the researchers used his hands to perform an MLD stroke on a person's leg. You could see the shadow of his hand, and you could most certainly see the lymph being immediately propelled through the lymphatic vessel.  But--just to confound the issue--notice I said 'person's leg' and not 'patient's leg.'  Others at the conference commented that this was a video taken while imaging a healthy leg--so we cannot be sure it works the same way in a leg or other limb that has LE.  I asked about this at a meeting we LSAP'ers had with Michael Bernas, who is an LE imaging expert, and Dr. Alex Munnoch, who is a microsurgeon doing some of the LE surgery in the UK.  Both said that while it's true that there is no random controlled trial evidence to prove that MLD works, that does not mean it does not work--just that scientific evidence is lacking.  Michael told us of an imaging demonstration where they showed that just running the point of a pen along a mouse's tail (with induced LE), you could see the lymph move.

So, scientifically speaking, it seems the jury is still out.  Meanwhile, I do MLD at least once a day, and I try for twice.  A few weeks ago after driving nonstop for five hours (my bad), in my sleeve, I had a very annoying ache in my arm.  So I did MLD for about ten minutes and wow...that ache reduced a lot (did not go away 100%--it almost never does) within another fifteen minutes.  So I'm a believer.

Great topic, Nibbana.  And I love the title!

Carol