wet bandage for LE

Following a discussion on the kicking LE' s butt thread, I'm posting here my experience with wet wrapping.

I have mild LE; minor swelling in my hand, arm, armpit, back of armpit and part of treated breast, with a cushion-like feeling under the armpit, heaviness etc.

My current massage therapist is admittedly NOT following the standard LE care protocol and for the last part of our session he wraps my arm with elastic bandages soaked in cold salted water.  He dissolves salt into water (abt 1 tablespoon for each bandage), puts in the bandages and puts everything in the fridge before we start the session. Abt 40 min later, he wraps my arm moderately tight and on top we put my sleeve (that's optional, alternatively we could wrap a bit tighter, but the sleeve adds the right compression for me) and leave it for 20min-no more no less.

I asked him for more research/articles etc and I'm hoping he'll provide something, but in the meantime the result has been great, even though I cannot know if it's because it's part of his strange treatment plan or if it has any value in itself. 

His explanation was that when cells retain fluid, there is an imbalance in their potassium/salt ratio and there is salt trapped inside that can't get out. By providing external salt, it interacts with the potassium and triggers the cell to release the internal salt, releasing fluid as well (it's not the same like when salt is digested). The optimal time is 20 min, and this time limit also helps protect the blood circulation in case it's necessary to wrap tighter (depending on the case). The elastic bandage works better than other garments, because due to texture/compression it releases the salt gradually, thus making the process smoother. Afterwards the skin is dehydrated, which requires moisturizer-he said the water/salt ratio depends on the reaction of the skin too and it may take a few tries till one gets it right.

I would guess this might work even better for general edema, but it seems to be working for my LE too. I'm having 2 sessions per week and we'll re-evaluate in 4 weeks. 

So far I've had ayurvedic massage abyanga (4 sessions over 4 weeks) and standard MLD followed by 25 min on the compression pump (2 sessions over 2 weeks), which didn't work for me (perhaps I should've tried more frequent sessions). The pump was great, but results didn't last long. With my current treatment the results are not as good as the pump, but they last a lot longer and I'm very excited about it. My arm is clearly a lot happier.

My therapist said he is using a combination of lymphatic massage, along with anthroposophical elements and the word Tibet came up once or twice. I know it's not the norm and since I don't have any medical background whatsoever I cannot really tell if it makes sense or not, but I'll give it a try and report back in case somebody is interested.