First trip traveling by air

I found it difficult to wear my sleeves/gauntlets for very long when they were new - try working your way up to wearing them by starting with a couple of hours a day and then increasing. I am sure to put my sleeves/gauntlets on at least an hour prior to the flight and keep them on at least an hour post flight - the earlier and longer the better for me. Also, avoid salty food, get up and move the length of the aisle if you can, hydrate, and fist pump periodically. Keep an eye on your swelling, if any, to monitor if there is an impact from flying. If so, get in a body of water like a pool, if you can - it usually helps. For truncal LE with sleeves some people wear a compression tank top so all is covered. Good luck!

tsoebbin - I'm in the same boat! I have flown once before, but I'm getting ready for an international flight in two weeks. I have my sleeves, gauntlets (which I never use at home) as well as my flexi-touch pump. I have LE in my trunk and breast as well, so I'm planning to wear a light compression cami on the flight.

Good luck! Don't strain to pull your stuff out of the overhead compartment. Just ask someone to help you. With the gauntlets and sleeves, they're going to just see you as somebody with a medical issue who could use some assistance. I was told that that's a good way to make sure you're not putting the lymphatic passages under stress.

If you're not sure what to say to people, I usually just say, if I'm asked, that I had the surgery and I need to wear something for compression. I haven't had anybody ask me what I had surgery for. Most people don't get into it, though sometimes somebody will tell me, oh, yeah, my brother got lymphedema from his knee surgery, or whatever.

You need to wait 1 hr to give your tissues time to normalize. Wearing compression may prevent swelling, but that doesn’t mean that your lymph fluid is draining correctly while at altitude. It takes about an hour after landing for the fluid to move back into the channels and the nodes. I was told that compression was necessarily only for flights>4 hr. (and my LE doc told me he never prescribes compression to someone who’s “had only 4 nodes out”) but on a 2.5 hr. flight from London-Geneva I noticed some finger swelling when not wearing compression. (Maybe it was all the sodium-laden cheese & charcuterie and the free champagne—first class was relatively cheap w/in Europe). I sweated out the TGV ride from Lausanne-Paris, because I knew we’d be crossing the Alps at very high speed, but I got no swelling despite not wearing compression. But because of that London-Geneva experience, I now don compression for any flight >1 hr. in length. (Didn’t wear it for the 45-min. flights between Rome & Pisa, and got no swelling).