(This is a continuation of a series. Please view the previous blog here.)
Due to travel, I stopped taking the Chinese herbs for lymphedema. That was after taking them for about six weeks.
Now, almost two months after stopping the herbs, I have great news….my legs have not only maintained, but the swelling has continued to lessen. It is barely noticeable. This is much less than I had three months ago.
According to the current Chinese medicine doctor I am working with, the herbs help get your body started on healing, but then your body continues. In this case, I believe it!
The only thing I’m doing now is staying active, mostly a lot of walking, including walking in the hills. Then some yoga every few days (I’m travelling so it’s a bit tough). I use a fitbit to measure my activity so that means at least 10,000 steps most days and over 50 floors each day too.
No compression stockings, except when I get on a plane.
I continue to eat well, which for me means a primarily vegan, plant-based diet.
What is clear to me is that this whole lymphedema issue, especially primary lymphedema, is not well understood by the western medical community. It appears very clear to me that these herbs can produce long term changes. That’s good news for those of us dealing with it as this is a safe and inexpensive option to try.
Anyway, I will be getting back to the Chinese herbs for lymphedema in a couple months when I am back home. My goal will be to see if I can get rid of it completely. Possible, maybe not, but I don’t see a downside in trying.
In the meantime I’m thrilled that the changes brought about by a short course of herbs are sticking and even improving. (Just a note, this is my second time using Chinese herbs for lymphedema. The first time I took them for a much longer time, but the results lasted for over two years.)
Have you tried Chinese herbs for lymphedema yet? Let us know! The more experiences we can share with each other, the better informed we are.
Hi
Thanks for your encouragement and hope.
Apart from Ginger and siberian ginseng what other herbs would you recommend? I have had it for about 5 years… The doctors are very negative but I always believe in hope and alternative help… Cutting out dairy and animal fats as best as possible has helped me a bit.. Also drinking lots of raw ginger and lemon in hot water seems to have an effect on minimizing overall body swelling… If I don’t drink this for a few days I can feel and see the difference.
Kindest
Claire
Hi Claire,
Thanks for reading. I always found that taking individual herbs didn’t really do anything noticeable for me, but glad you see some results from the ginger! That’s great and that’s good that you’ve also gotten relief from moving more plant-based. The key to getting significant relief, I believe, is using a trained chinese medicine doctor who will give you a custom mixture of herbs in sufficient quantities so that it can make a long-lasting difference. Please see my blog about this. If its of interest, I would highly recommend you give that a try and see if it helps you minimize the swelling altogether. As far as your doctors being negative, most Western doctors have no experience with natural treatments; it’s not part of their training. Slowly it seems more are getting exposure to Eastern medicine and nutritional approaches but it’s certainly far from mainstream. Best of luck!
Great information, I would love to have seen photos in any of your posts! I have primary lymphodema and just am recovering from bypass surgery with some results but wanting to do everything I possibly can.
Hi Teri,
Thanks for reading and commenting. I’m not a public type person so I prefer not to share photos, but hope you find this helpful regardless. Would love to hear about any experience you have with any of this if you try it.
Hello,
I wanted to write to extend my deepest thanks. I was diagnosed with primary lymphedema in my lower left leg 8 years ago when it randomly began to swell. I was told by the medical community that I just needed to live with it, given some compressions stockings and sent on my way. I have tried everything I could find – had a lymph-bypass surgery, which was only able to do one connection instead of the three that were planned. I did Class 4 laser treatment, which helped, but was time-consuming and did not offer any lasting results, I tried taking herbs and supplements. I have a flexitouch pump. Every few months, I search online for a cure to lymphedema and that’s how I ended up on this blog a few weeks ago.
At this point in my life, I was willing to experiment to try to solve this condition. It is true that I was skeptical about this working, when I found a provider, I was surprised at how he looked at this as an easily correctable condition – one that would take time, but correctable nonetheless. I listened to him talk about qi and the way in which my body was out of balance. I continued to be skeptical. The things he was saying just went against so many things I know. “What do you mean that my body type doesn’t need 8 cups of water or more a day? What are you talking about that I shouldn’t be eating kale right now?” I had acupuncture, red light therapy, and he gave me about a month’s worth of premixed herb pouches to drink in the morning and at night. I got there two times a week.
After approximately one week of taking the herbs, there is a noticeable change in my leg. Before I started treatment with him, I stopped everything else I was doing, so that I could really assess – stopped the pump, stopped the laser, stopped taking my own supplements. Still, my leg is appearing BETTER than it was when I was doing those things. Reading this blog, I never expected to see results that fast. Additionally, it’s now hot outside when swelling is the worst!
He has also recommended drastic diet changes, which will be very different and difficult for me. However, I am working quickly to follow his instructions because I want this part of my life back. I am so thankful for this blog. I am elated and equally devastated that I lived with this condition for 8 years only to discover that someone (whose practices western medicine completely rejects) had the answer all along.
Hi Kim,
Thank you so much for sharing your experience! That’s a fast response…sounds like you hit the jackpot on finding a great TCM doc. I hope that means you’ll get great results as you do this longer. I’m curious about the diet changes the TCM person is recommending. I just eat a clean, vegan diet with a lot of green veggies, but maybe I can be doing more? That is very intriguing. Yes, western medicine is frustrating. It seems that not much is really known about how all of the systems of the body interact, but you wish they would just admit that. What I do like about TCM is that it is truly about restoring health, not treating symptoms, although I find it frustrating at times since it is so abstract and communication can sometimes be a problem. Regardless, very happy to hear of your progress and hope you will share how it goes as you continue!
Hello,
I read about your experience with the Chinese herbs, where you stopped taking them for awhile and the effects lasted. How do you know its not the vegetarian diet that is keeping the swelling down? My right leg started swelling about 20 years ago, and the swelling has spread throughout my body. I am starting to wonder if I really have Lymphedema or if its something else. Most people seem to have problems with a leg or an arm.
Thanks.
Hi Anne, thanks for reading. Of course I cannot be 100% sure, but when my lymphedema started accelerating, which happened after a long flight, just doing vegan/plant based didn’t stop it, it continued and was very difficult to control. I even started trying other “subsets” of vegan diets….like doing vegan /plant based but also taking out all potentially allergic foods (like an elimination diet). I did that for 30 days and it did help just a bit but the swelling returned the same day I started eating normally (as a vegan) again. But the chinese herbs, after doing them for awhile did make the swelling drop and stay minimal. But the good news about chinese medicine is that they will treat whatever you have, even if its not strict “lymphedema”. That’s one thing I love about chinese medicine, the goal is just to get the body back into balance to eliminate any disorder. Really unique and very interesting. Give it a try! If you do please come back and post whatever results you get so we can continue collectively comparing notes.
Thank you so much, Jeanne, for this website and for encouraging those of us with lymphedema to keep searching for ways to overcome it. Your story has prompted me to schedule my first TCM visit and I’m very hopeful that treatment will be successful. So many other treatments (MLD, compression garments, sequential pumps, supplements, rebounding, laser, whole body vibration) have helped, but I’m looking for more — to minimize or eliminate the swelling. My lymphedema started in my arm after a mastectomy, then moved into trunk and legs following abdominal surgeries. I’m grateful to western medicine for what it has been able to do – reverse the swelling in my arm – and hopeful that TCM can do the same for the rest of my body.
Hi Mary, thanks for reading and commenting! I’m excited you are going to try it. I HAD to share it as TCM is the only thing that I felt gave me my old life back. Otherwise I felt like I was fighting an uphill battle with a giant to do list that was overwhelming my life! Please come back and post your experience with it, good or bad, so we can add to our knowledge here. And please remember to give it time. It took me four long months of chinese herbs to see ANY movement, then it started dropping significantly from there. I have my fingers crossed for you!!!!!
Hi , i m living in Delhi (India) i want to try these Chinese herbs for lymphedema cause by filariasis…. please post address of trained Chinese doctor near me
Hello Shashi, we have an article on this site that walks through suggestions to find someone near you. Unfortunately I don’t know of anyone in that area, but this should help you: https://fightlymphedema.com/how-to-get-chinese-herbs-to-treat-lymphedema/. Good luck!!!! And please come back and post your results, good or bad, so we can all add to our knowledge base here.
Hi Jeanne,wow this site feels like a light at the end of a long tunnel
My first week of chinese herbs ends tomorrow! I am excited to see what happens as the weeks progress.
Nothing else has made the slightest but of difference so far,but I have a v optimistic feeling about this latest effort to reduce my very swollen legs.
I love the TCM idea of getting the body into balance then it will heal itself X
Hi Stella,
Thanks for reading! I’m very happy you’re trying it too! Please come back and let us know your progress…good or bad, the more we all share our experience, the more we can learn about this process and what to expect.
Hi Jeanne,
Thank you for making this beautiful website and thank you for sharing your experiences. It helps us all.
I have a swollen leg for the past 17 years.
It took me about 12 years to realize i could actually do something to improve my condition.
My left leg was pretty swollen. The doctors didnt really have an answer… sounds familiar i guess to a lot of people.
Manual lymphdrainage took out a big part of the initial swelling. But after that they just recommended me a pressure sock.
But after walking around with the pressure sock for all the time after that i realized that the sock was not improving my condition. The back of my knees looked almost black, the sock was blocking the circulation in my case. So one day i decided to leave it of. And that is till today the case.
And my leg only improved. I also tried many different things. There are many things that helped me, like streching with yoga, clean diet, chinese herbs… But recently i have been going to a Qi gong master for accupuncture and he was able to take a lot of locked pain inside the leg out. Also because of this treatments i havent had an outbreak of fever for the past 1.5 years where it used to be every 6 months or so.
The leg is still more swollen than the other but so much more free than it felt ever before. I just felt that i needed to share my story after reading yours. So yes i also believe the chinese medicine has a better understanding of how it can be managed or treated.
Hi Cedric,
Thanks for reading and commenting. That’s really interesting about the qi gong approach to acupuncture. I will try to learn more about that. That’s also interesting about the compression stocking. I always wondered if those could make our bodies get dependent or lazy….hmmm. There are dermatologists who say that wearing moisturizer on your skin makes it get lazy and stop producing oil, maybe it could work the same way? Obviously we need to be extremely careful with that but once its under control maybe it’s best not to wear them constantly? But obviously we need to be careful with that as compression can be key with stopping things from progressing. If anyone else has any input on these things I’d love to hear it. Really interesting stuff!