I'm pregnant! Yay!! I'm at the end of my first trimester and have had no serious issues with my legs as of yet, but being pregnant does not make the lymphedema better. In fact, it can make it worse. Legs will swell with pregnancy alone, but add lymphedema to the mix and watch out! I try to wear my garments, those tight, very tight, compression garments that will help with the swelling. I try to wear them on a regular basis, but sometimes it is hard to put them on. If I'm not feeling well, the thought of struggling to put them on is not something I want to think about. With that said, I barely wore them in this first trimester. I was having all day morning sickness and couldn't really leave the couch because of it. At least I had my legs up all day, which helps slightly. When I did get them on, my legs felt good, that is until mid-day when my legs felt so restricted because of the swelling and I wanted to chop them off.
I've done some research about those women out there who have lymphedema and are or were pregnant. Not much to be found, just little things that don't really give too much information. There is this one article on the website LymphNotes that explains a little bit of what needs to be done when you are pregnant and have lymphedema. Click here to read the article. For the most part, I should be wearing my compression garments everyday, keeping my weight under control (don't gain over the recommended amount) throughout the pregnancy, and doing manual lymph drainage everyday. Duh. Things I already knew.
Now, since lymphedema is a hereditary disease, will I pass this on to our baby? I have done some research on this as well. What I've found was that I have a 50% chance of passing this gene on to our child. Hopefully lymphedema stops with me, but anything is possible. I've read a lot of stories of women with primary lymphedema who have children and none of them have developed it. So there is hope for our little one.
