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Greetings,
For those recovering from cancer and the side effects of cancer treatment, therapists, including physical therapists and occupational therapists who specialize in the treatment of lymphedema, are a resource to help answer these questions. More and more research shows that a patient’s quality of life may be greatly enhanced when exercise is carefully integrated into cancer treatment and recovery. A qualified lymphedema therapist/physical therapist can help a patient safely resume a positive exercise regime. A LT/PT can also help the patient address concerns about the possibility of increasing lymphedema with inappropriate exercise. This edition of the Bellisse Newsletter is dedicated to DragonHeart Vermont, a special group of cancer survivors in our hometown of Burlington, VT. These women have made exercise an integral part of their recovery and in the process have created a close bond with one another and inspired their community. This past August, the Burlington waterfront was the site of the First Lake Champlain Dragon Boat festival, hosted by DragonHeart Vermont. The day before the festival, Bellisse co-founder Lesli Bell spoke about truncal lymphedema to two hundred breast cancer survivors and dragonboat rowers. Lesli was also a member of one of the dragonboat teams herself! The day of the festival was bright and sunny, and the silhouettes of the dragonboats against the mountains on the far shore of the lake was a gorgeous sight – and a beautiful reminder of our power to overcome adversity. Read on to learn more about dragonboating – and about exercise in general!
Good for the body is the work of the body, good for the soul the work of the soul, and good for either the work of the other. ~Henry David Thoreau
There's a lot of confusing information out there about exercise for lymphedema patients: should you, shouldn't you, when, how much, how hard? To help shed light on this subject, Bellisse co-founder and lymphedema therapist Lesli Bell hunted around for some good, common-sense wisdom that was backed up by scientific research and clinical experience, and she found the following articles she'd like to share. National Lymphedema Network Position Paper on Exercise
Walking Toward Better Health Exercise and Lymphedema. An excellent article from LymphNotes. Exercise, Lymphedema, and the Limb at Risk. A very helpful and interesting article by lymphedema expert Bonnie Lasinski, MA, PT- CLT.
The American Physical Therapy Association website contains some great new information and resources for lymphedema patients. For a Fact Sheet with useful information on lymphedema, and to learn how physical therapy can help, visit http://www.oncologypt.org/pdfs/ LymphedemaFactSheetFinal.pdf. Another great link on the APTA site is the therapist locator tool. They've recently added the category "lymphedema therapist" to the tool, so now lymphedema patients can go straight to the person most qualified to help them!
More and more research is showing that cancer patients who exercise have a significantly better rate of survival. Here are some of the recent studies we found: Holmes MD, Chen WY,Feskanich D, et al: “Physical activity and survival after breast cancer diagnosis”. JAMA 293:2479-2486, 2005 This study of almost 3000 women with stage 1-3 breast cancer showed that women who exercised for an equivalent of four to five 30-minute sessions of brisk walking each week improved their survival rate and overall mortality from other causes by 50-60%. Interestingly, these benefits were independent of the subjects’ pre-diagnosis activity levels. Meyerhardt JA, Giovannucci EL,Holmes MD, et al. "Physical activity and survival after colorectal cancer diagnosis." J.Clin.Oncol 24:3527-3534, 2006 Meyerhardt JA, Heseltine D, Niedzwiecki D, et al: "The impact of physical activity on cancer recurrence and survival in patients with stage III colon cancer: Findings from CALGB 89803." J Clin Oncol 24:3535-3541, 2006 These two studies had guidelines closely parallel to the Holmes study but were done on colorectal cancer patients. These studies showed a similar association between physical activity and post-diagnosis mortality. However, for the colorectal cancer subjects, the level of activity required to reduce mortality was about double that for the women in the breast cancer study.
Delight your customer by enabling her to walk out your door in comfort! Bellisse Premier Dealers carry our full inventory of 26 sizes and maintain all 26 sizes in stock by reordering as necessary. By keeping every size on hand, Bellisse Premier Dealers are able to fit virtually every customer, every time, the first time, in the correct Compressure Comfort® Bra size. No waiting. Immediate satisfaction. Customer loyalty! Customer and caregiver referrals! Having the entire size selection in stock will eliminate the need for returns, saving on shipping and handling costs, restocking fees and your valuable time and effort! Bellisse Premier Dealers also have highlighted listings on the Bellisse website’s “Dealer Locator”. To locate a Premier Dealer in your area visit our Dealer Locator at http://www.bellisse.com/dealer_locator.shtml
A dragon boat is a traditional Chinese boat that is long and narrow and powered by a crew of up to 20 rowers. For racing events, dragon boats are rigged with decorative dragon heads and tails and the cadence is signaled by a drum. DragonHeart Vermont is a dragon boat crew comprised entirely of women who are breast cancer survivors. The physical, mental, and emotional experiences shared by the DragonHeart Vermont rowers during training and competition, and the deep friendships these experiences create, carry over into the women’s daily lives and offer valuable benefits long after their workout time is over. Linda Dyer is the founder of DragonHeart Vermont. She writes of her experience: "None of us on DragonHeart had ever paddled a dragon boat before cancer. Few of us could ever have called ourselves athletes – that is, until now. Dragon boating has helped us to recover the person we were. Even better, it helps us to define the person we are becoming after cancer. In a dragon boat, we feel our strength and begin to trust in our bodies again. Best of all, we feel the collective power of the boat and the comfort in the connection with all of our teammates." Read more of Linda's story... DragonHeart team member (and Compressure Comfort Bra wearer) Linda McSweeney is planning to travel with the team to the 2007 International Dragonboat Festival in Australia. "In September 2007 over 1700 breast cancer survivors will converge on the Sunshine Coast of Australia for a 3-day Dragon Boat Festival. Dragonheart Vermont is one of just four U.S. teams registered for this event, and for us, it is the trip of a lifetime. The breast cancer survivors of DragonHeart in Burlington Vermont range in age from 24 to 76 and have various diagnoses from DCIS to advanced metastatic cancers; several of us have arm or trunk lymphedema; and we have a few titanium knees thrown in to make things interesting. Our "Team Australia" will be training on and off the water this year as we prepare for our Australia races. Lake Champlain will be frozen this winter, but DragonHeart will be keeping our muscles and hearts warm with pilates, yoga, weight training and Taiko Drumming." Read more... DragonHeart Vermont is not the first or the only dragonboat team made up of breast cancer survivors. In fact, the two have become inextricably paired. In the fall of 1995, Dr. McKenzie, a Canadian sports medicine physician and exercise physiologist, conducted a research study on the cardio-respiratory fitness of two groups of women, one of which had been treated for breast cancer, and another that had no history of breast cancer. The breast cancer group had been given a lot of "don'ts" following their treatment, particularly about restricting activities that used the upper body. But when Dr. MacKenzie examined the issue more closely, he found that there was no published research to support this well-intentioned advice. So he decided to return these women to an unrestricted, active lifestyle. This was the impetus behind Dr. McKenzie's idea to form the first breast cancer survivor dragon boat team.
Bellisse is proud to introduce our new Point of Sale Kit! We’ve designed it to assist Dealers and Health Care Providers with teaching people about truncal lymphedema. It’s also a versatile selling tool for marketing the Bellisse Compressure Comfort Bra in retail settings or at off-site locations such as in- services, breast cancer conferences, and medical trade shows. The Bellisse Point of Sale Kit includes:
For more details or to order, please visit our website at http://www.bellisse.com/dealers/index.shtml or call us today at 1-877-273-1683
As part of our series on alternative approaches to cancer and healing, we’d like to call your attention to the September issue of “Namaste”, the online newsletter of the Deepak Chopra Center for Wellbeing. The newsletter provides information on the Ayurvedic approach to cancer treatment, which focuses on detoxification and balancing. Of particular interest to us this month was the article about yoga poses that are safe to do while undergoing chemotherapy and radiation. http://www.chopra.com/template.aspx? id=141 You might also want to visit this page on the Chopra.com website for some basic info on complementary and alternative therapies for cancer: http://chop ra.com/article118.aspx
October is Breast Cancer awareness month! Around the country, hospitals, breast cancer centers and breast cancer organizations are honoring this month with a variety of conferences and information seminars. These are wonderful educational opportunities for patients, the healers in the many disciplines who treat them, and the tireless supporters of those diagnosed with breast cancer. Here in Burlington Vermont, the Fletcher Allen Breast Cancer Center has been sponsoring an educational day for several years. The event, spearheaded by Dr. Patti O’Brien, is designed to meet the broad needs of survivors, caregivers, health care professionals, and the general public - anyone who is concerned about the many complex issues related to breast health and women's health. It will also provide opportunities to network with other survivors, caregivers, nurses, lymphedema therapists, physical therapists, psychologists, and cancer researchers. For people outside the Vermont area, please contact your local breast cancer organizations or hospitals to find out what is going on in your area. There is wealth of information out there that can enrich us all.
Here's a great Compressure Comfort Bra testimonial from Tobi, one of our favorite dragonboaters: "I could not believe that in addition to recovering from my mastectomy and TRAM Reconstruction I had to deal with truncal and breast lymphedma. Five years ago, this was a condition that was hardly recognized. At first Nicole Gergich, my physical therapist, tried wrapping me in ace bandages from under my armpits to my waist. After several hours they started to bunch up and slip. And try wrapping this configuration by yourself! "Next I started to haunt lingerie departments looking for garments that would help. I tried body suits (really uncomfortable in the crotch area), sports bras (did not come down long enough), burn compression garments that only came up to the top of my ribs (rolled down from the top and wearing suspenders did not help). I was really disgusted! "Then one day I went to a lymphedema workshop with my therapist (I was a case study and she was talking about my challenges). Lesli and Lisa from Bellisse were there too, and they fitted me for their new bra. Success at last. I could put it on by myself. I had compression for my trunk and my breast and I could wear it all day because it was comfortable. Finally, success! I wore it for months. It really helped. I was so thankful."
There are so many wise words about exercise that we couldn’t limit ourselves to just a few! So here is a collection of what wise people through the ages have said about exercise:
Movement is a medicine for creating change in a
person's physical, emotional, and mental states.
It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and
keeps the mind in vigor.
Our bodies are our gardens - our wills are our
gardeners.
The best six doctors anywhere
The human body was designed to walk, run or stop;
it wasn't built for coasting.
True enjoyment comes from activity of the mind and
exercise of the body; the two are united.
The only way to keep your health is to eat what you
don't want, drink what you don't like and do what
you'd druther not.
Take care of your body. It's the only place you have
to live.
This newsletter contains articles that we believe will be of general interest to the Bellisse community of lymphedema patients, their family and friends, and their health care providers. Sometimes, however, we have news and links that are of interest to only one of these groups. To be sure that you are you are in all the categories that interest you, please click on the "Update my profile" link at the very bottom of this newsletter. As always, Bellisse will not share your information with anyone else.
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Exercise
- some of us love it, some of us avoid it, but
all of us know that we need it! It's more important
than vitamin pills, at least as important as eating
well, and it can control or even cure many of our
health problems. Heart disease, diabetes, and
perhaps even cancer would be reduced profoundly if
more people would stick to a healthy regime of
regular exercise. So why is it so hard for most of us
to keep it up? And if you have had cancer, when do
you start exercising again – and how much?
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