A Call to Action:
Imagine your doctor being unable to tell you which direction your blood flows in your body, or not being able to tell you the difference between veins and arteries. Or, Imagine your blood pressure is well out of range or glucose levels are elevated, yet your doctor smiles and sends you on your way. Sounds farfetched doesn’t it, yet fundamental errors such as these are occurring every day in every city in the US with patients experiencing lymphatic disorders. The lymphatic circuit is a parallel circuit to the veins and arteries with vital importance yet they remain ignored and un-mastered by medicine. Like high blood pressure and diabetes it has a lasting impact on your health, and often leads to accelerated and horrific consequences. Sadly, not until it has advanced to the point where other complications come into play will a physician actually be able to provide you any assistance, but once that complication, usually infection, is under control there is very little your doctor can do to help you. The core point is this: Lymphatic’s are like any system. Unless you understand how a system works, you have little change of aiding or repairing it.
Who can you turn to for help? A physical therapist is your only hope. With a 2 week class in lymphatic therapy your PT’s knowledge far exceeds your doctors. Ideally, the PT should be working under a overseeing MD, but this cannot be accomplished because they’re very few MD’s who actually understand the lymph system properly.
You have read others points on this bill and they have shared with you why they feel it’s important. Here is my point.
Why is this bill so important? Because it is the pivotal act that will build credibility for this disease. Without it, another decade could pass before any action or direction is taken. Even though more Americans have lymphedema than Type I diabetes Lymphedema has been ignored, and ill researched. Without establishing credibility for the disease, we will not be able to bring to light that we have an enormous hole in man’s fundamental understanding of biology. Making this realization commonly known will be difficult because few physician believe there is a problem. If physicians, which are among the most educated vocations, do not realize how ignorant they are in the field of Lymphology, it will be very difficult for us to build support from others.
While man has not given us any significant tools to fight lymphedema, God has given us voice and self determination to solicit aid to right this medical injustice. The road is far and long and many of us shall pass before this disease is understood and controlled. If that should be my fate, I shall rest more peacefully in my grave knowing I supported this significant challenge and I wager you will, too.
