Lymph drainage before surgery ?

DayLily, hello!

Certainly getting some help before surgery would be a great idea. A referral to a well-trained lymphedema therapist for baseline arm measurements will give you a way to keep track of any potential swelling after surgery. S/he should also give you some personalized risk reduction strategies and--yes--teach you a simple, gentle lymph massage you can use before and after surgery and throughout your treatment.

Here's more information on reducing your risk of lymphedema:

http://www.stepup-speakout.org/riskreduction_for_l...

Best wishes for smooth sailing through surgery and all your treatment!
Binney

I think I recall someone posting that they were wrapped for reconstruction in NOLA.

DayLily, NOLA refers to New Orleans Louisiana, where there's a well regarded center for breast reconstruction. They are proactive about wrapping arms before surgery, and I think they may even have LE therapists on staff who provide manual lymph drainage before and after surgery (using multi-layer short-stretch bandaging, standard LE therapy to reduce swelling). All of this --I think--when there are nodes being removed as part of a surgery, and/or if this has been done in earlier surgeries. If you poke around the reconstruction forum, you'll find lots about the NOLA folks.