Coping with Lymphedema: A Practical Guide to Understanding, Treating, and Living with Lymphedema

This book gives you a great overview of what Lymphedema is and it gives you great advice from those who have Lymphedema and how they coped with it. Some doctors do not recognize the condition at first butonce you know what you have, get this book. It will prepare you for what your options are as far as treatment and maintenance once you get it under control. It explains how you will never get rid of the condition but it is controllable. It answers so many questions that you think of after you are told that you have Lymphedema.

First, anyone who is looking for books on lymphedema will find out fast that books on lymphedema are kind of like treatments for the the disorder: mighty few and far between. Of all the available books, this one is the best of a thin, thin crop. There are chapters on the origins of lymphedema, symptoms, the (few) treatments, diet and exercise, coping and other life issues. And while they are very informative, as other reviewers have pointed out, the authors do focus heavily on upper limb lymphedema. Readers with lower limb lymphedema get tossed a bone of info targeted to their needs every now and then, but the primary emphasis of this book is on lymphedema as the result of breast cancer treatment. Still, readers with lower limb lymphedema can take most of the info in this book and apply it to their own situation. This book is better than nothing, which is pretty much what will be available should this book go out of print. It's a pity that a disorder that affects so many people is virtually ignored by the medical and publishing communities.

This book was very helpful to me. I have had lymphedema for 30 years, and because it is such a rare disorder, it has been impossible to find much information about it. The book exposed many treatment options that I was unaware of previously. Thank you, Joan and Diane, for doing such a wonderful job on the book. I know your book has a limited audience, but we need the information desperately.

This book confirms what took many hours of searching on my own time to comprehend the complications and control of lymphedema, a medical condition I was not forewarned might develop following breast surgery. I highly recommend this book to any person facing surgery and/or radiation involving lymph nodes as well as anyone who currently has lymphedema.