Good evening both, We are now on half term too......kids are already becoming fractious ( I.e. Bored, despite cupboards full of toys, books, games etc)! But we are well used to it now 😊 . They are at the age, 7 and 9, where they are pretty independent minded but still need looking after. I do a lot of walking, which helps with the lymphoedema....although my therapist said that walking can make arm lymphoedema a little worse because of the effect of gravity. Mine is mainly in my boob and under my armpit though. It's all a bit of balance re the exercise. I got some very cheap Rosemary Conley DVDs from Amazon and if the weather is rubbish, I do half an hour of them during the day when I'm in the house on my own. Some have some good arm and chest exercises which I find helps. Or I think it does, but who knows! Our hospital also runs an exercise programme for anyone recovering from cancer. I haven't been but a couple of my friends have and they say it's fantastic. After the exercise bit, they then do 30 mins of relaxation and meditation ...apparently some people fall asleep....that would be me! Peggy, re mld therapists, I've seen 3. I tried one privately but I didn't think the treatment was effective, so turned to another who is fantastic. But I also have 4 shorter sessions on NHS and that's not too bad. So it's worth trying more than one therapist if the first one doesn't seem to be having any effect. They all work differently depending on which mld school they trained under. I agree that we should be able to get treatment early on, but lymphoedema services are generally underfunded on the NHS, and often only provided for more severe cases. So then you end up paying privately, which isn't cheap, but I am so desperate I will pay for a session every 2-3 weeks. i think the foam cubes are one type of thing you can put on the swollen bit. You also get bags of cherry pips! And then there are what's like corrugated cotton pads that come in various sizes. I had a google the other day and was amazed at the variety of things you can buy.... The problem is knowing what's going to work and what isn't. I think some of it is trial and error. The tape was definitely an error for me ☹️ Hope you are both enjoying the weekend, and the weather improves. I'm tired of the cold, wind and rain. Roll on Spring 😊 Tessa
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