Hints and Tips
Basic skin care for lymphedema
Therapists are often asked about the best skincare products for washing and moisturizing. Besides referring them to a pharmacist, is there anything else you could recommend?
Basic principles: Your skin is protected by an acid that is a type of protection layer. Because many soaps are highly alkaline, they strip that acid off the skin, and you lose the protective barrier that’s there to keep foreign objects and organisms from entering your body.
Soaps: Talk to your pharmacist about what soaps are available that have a balanced pH level. You want a pH soap that’s not much more than about seven, which is perfectly neutral to help protect that acid mantle. The key is, particularly for people with lymphedema of the lower extremities, to protect that acid mantle and that barrier
function of the skin. That comes from daily cleansing of the skin with pH-balanced soaps and then applying some form of emollient. I use the word “emollient” because we’re not trying to add water to the skin; we’re trying to prevent water loss.
up with a contact allergic dermatitis from using too many “lotions and potions” on their skin.
Summary: It’s a case of simple, good cleansing with a pH-balanced soap and using a topical emollient that doesn’t have a lot of additives, to help protect and preserve that barrier. LP
Emollients: Normally, at any given time, a great deal of water vapour escapes through the skin. The purpose of an emollient is also to put a barrier there. Simpler is better. Be careful of expensive skincare products that have all kinds of additional ingredients, most of which we have no idea whether they’re helpful or harmful. Unfortunately, people can end
Source: Dr. David Keast, as presented in the final Q&A of the National Lymphedema Conference.
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