The clinic provides Lymphapress therapy to treat patients with swollen limbs that do not respond to elevation, crepe bandage compression and medications. This reduces the morbidity and improves the lifestyle. It is ideally suited to give relief to patients who have blocked veins that occur following clots or Deep Vein Thrombosis or blocked lymphatics that occur following filarial infection (elephantiasis) or after cancer surgery where the lymph nodes are removed and the arm gets swollen (after mastectomy) or leg gets swollen (after radical retroperitoneal dissection).
The limb is covered by a special sleeve that has 8 air bladders or cuffs. These are inflated sequentially from below upwards up to a pressure of 120 mm of Hg that squeezes the legs and empties it of the extra-fluid that has accumulated in the soft tissue. Limb circumference is measured before and after each sitting to demonstrate reduction in swelling and the benefit obtained. Each sitting lasts for 1 hour. They are advised to take around 5 sittings – total number depending on the amount of swelling present at the onset and the response to therapy. Once swelling is completely reduced or does not reduce further, lymphapress therapy is stopped and compression garments are prescribed to prevent recurrence of swelling.