I'm struggling........

Sheri, sometimes we flare, and who knows what caused it? The heat, the altitude, more activity, some decline in lymphatic function?

Binney and I have noted that we get emtional devestation when we flare, sort of out of proportion, but it's a condition that defies logic--we do the right things, and our bodies don't respond.

Hands are tough. I have hand swelling.

I think it's time to break it down and rexamine each component of your care:

1) The night garment: does it still fit well? Some aren't great on compressing the hands. At times like this, wrapping can give you the custom fit you may need, or you may need a new garment or to use a short stretch or pad over the problem areas.

2) Hand swelling: tough, tough, tough. The sleeve pushes fluid up and it's easy to trap fluid at the wrist. A good hand wrap helps a lot, but may not win the battle of "gradient compression" with the sleeve, and fluid goes to the lower pressure

3) Therapist input: is she doing MLD on you?

There's a huge thread about garments as we all struggle with them. Personally, even with my pricey custom Juzo gloves, they trap fluid up by my knuckles. When my hand was at it's worse, I did a lot of hand wraps, stuck pads into the gloves, just experimented constantly and expensively.

For me, night time wrapping is the key to daytime freedome from compression, and I have a closet full of jovipaks and Tributes that don't work all that well for me....

LE defies logic. And it sucks.

I'm going to put in an illustration of hand wrapping:

And MLD of the hand--mostly the palm side

The arm sequence:

You are not alone, and it does suck, and what's with the whole shame thing? I know I have it, like I had no shame about when I had a cast, but I'll tuck my gloved hand in my pocket when I meet neighbors on a walk



Personally, my hand swelling settled down, and KS1 had a serious bout of hand swelling that has finally responded, so it tends to get better.