Kayla Duncan LMT

September special promotion activated!!💃

My next three clients will each receive one complimentary Kingdom Come Home herbal tincture and one complimentary Valajo Designs sticker! The choice of products is yours! Everything is included with your session 💆‍♀️

The rules 👑

👉First come, first serve. If you want first dibs, you can prepay for your session to reserve your products.

👉 Promotional products are disbursed upon completion of your bodywork session.

👉Call, text, or message me to get scheduled!

👉Promotion good through the month of September. You must complete your session this month to receive the promotional offer.

👉No refunds, exchanges, or substitutions once you have redeemed this offer.

If you want to purchase KCH or Valajo Designs products by themselves, I will share links to purchase directly from these women owned small businesses in the comments.

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Massage therapy is an excellent non invasive way to manage chronic pain!

KT tape can be an incredible tool for many different indications. I’m really interested in waffle taping for fibrosis!

🌀 WHY USE MORE THAN ONE LYMPHATIC TAPING PATTERN?

This image demonstrates three taping components selected to address a complex upper-arm presentation involving lipedema, localized fibrosis, and congestion.

💜 The waffle application

The purple waffle pattern is placed directly over the rounded, hardened tissue near the inner elbow.

Its purpose is to provide gentle, multidirectional mechanical input to the skin and superficial tissues during movement. Unlike the longer lymphatic applications, the waffle pattern is focused on the localized area of congestion and fibrotic change.

🩵 The medial lymphatic application

The second application is anchored on the medial upper arm, just below the axilla. Its fingers extend toward the waffle and the congested inner-elbow tissue.

Because the solid anchor is positioned proximally, the application is intended to support superficial fluid movement from the distal congested area toward the functioning axillary basin.

Although the axillary lymph nodes are intact in this example, the tissue surrounding them may still be congested, dense, tender, or fibrotic. Intact nodes do not necessarily mean that fluid is moving efficiently through every portion of the surrounding tissue.

🩵 The superior-posterior application

The longer application is anchored at the superior-posterior shoulder. It represents an additional route around the densest portion of the axillary hollow rather than concentrating all mechanical input in one congested region.

Why include two proximal patterns?

We once described the lymphatic system as though everyone followed one predictable drainage map. Modern lymphatic imaging has revealed considerably more variation.

Indocyanine green lymphography has identified both anteromedial and posterolateral lymphatic patterns within the upper arm. Researchers have also documented distinct lymphosomes, watershed regions, and the variable Mascagni–Sappey pathway along the lateral upper arm.

This does not mean that tape can create a new lymphatic vessel or guarantee drainage through a particular route. It means that upper-arm lymphatic flow may not be limited to one identical pathway in every person.

The clinical reasoning behind this combined application is to:

🔹 Address the localized fibrotic tissue directly
🔹 Support the more traditional medial pathway toward the axillary basin
🔹 Provide an additional superior-posterior pattern around congested axillary tissue
🔹 Avoid relying on one route when the tissue presentation suggests regional restriction
🔹 Combine taping with the drainage pattern established during manual treatment

Taping does not literally pull lymph through the arm. Its proposed role is to provide gentle, ongoing mechanical input to the skin and superficial fascia as the person breathes and moves.

The application must still be individualized according to tissue texture, skin integrity, swelling distribution, surgical history, symptoms, and response to treatment. When the actual pathway needs to be confirmed, lymphatic imaging—not the appearance of the arm alone—is required.

In this case, my client is educated in self MLD and will apply her compression as usual. The tape will stay on for 2 to 3 days depending on her tolerance.

Nothing works in isolation. Everything works in combination.™

Research referenced:

Johnson AR, et al. Real-Time Visualization of the Mascagni–Sappey Pathway Utilizing ICG Lymphography. Cancers. 2020.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32397246/

Johnson AR, et al. The All but Forgotten Mascagni–Sappey Pathway: Learning from Immediate Lymphatic Reconstruction. Journal of Reconstructive Microsurgery. 2020.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31398762/

Sakai H, et al. The Upper Arm Lymphosome: Watershed of Upper Arm Lymphatic Pathways Evaluated with Indocyanine Green Lymphography. Lymphology. 2025.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41406423/

This information is for educational purposes and does not replace the advice of a medical professional. Taping is not appropriate for all people and the clinician applying the tape should be educated in the indications, contraindications and safety measures.

I found a set of massage balls at Aldi for $2.99!!

Your tissue quality says a lot about your chronic conditions! Lipedema tissue is very different from normal fat.

🩷 OBESITY vs. LIPEDEMA: CAN YOU HAVE BOTH?

Yes. Absolutely.

And this is one of the reasons lipedema can be so difficult to recognize.

A woman can have obesity AND lipedema at the same time. They are separate conditions, and current consensus recognizes obesity as a common comorbidity in people with lipedema.

The important question isn't simply:

“Does this person have excess body fat?”

It's also:

“HOW is that fat distributed—and what does the tissue FEEL like?”

🔵 WITH OBESITY

Fat accumulation tends to be more generalized and proportional throughout the body.

The arms may certainly become larger, but the increase generally occurs along with overall weight gain.

The tissue usually does not have the classic combination of disproportion, pressure tenderness and easy bruising associated with lipedema.

🩷 WITH LIPEDEMA

We may see something quite different:

💪 Disproportionate enlargement of the limbs
↔️ Often bilateral and symmetrical involvement
⚡ Pain or marked tenderness with pressure
🟣 Easy bruising
🕸️ Nodular or fibrotic tissue changes
⌚ A cuff-like transition at the wrist may occur
🖐️ The hands are typically spared
⚖️ The affected areas may remain disproportionately enlarged even when weight is lost

These characteristics—not body size alone—are what begin to raise suspicion for lipedema.

🩷 BUT HERE'S WHERE IT GETS COMPLICATED…

A woman with obesity can ALSO have every one of those lipedema characteristics.

Having obesity does not rule out lipedema.

In fact, sometimes weight loss makes the underlying disproportion more obvious.

A woman may lose considerable weight from her abdomen, face or trunk while her affected extremities remain disproportionately large. Published literature describes cases in which lipedema became more apparent following substantial weight loss or bariatric surgery.

That doesn't mean weight management isn't important.

It absolutely can be.

Obesity can add additional mechanical load, affect mobility and potentially worsen the symptom burden of lipedema. Treating obesity when it is present is an important part of caring for the whole person.

But telling someone with lipedema simply to:

“LOSE WEIGHT AND YOUR ARMS WILL GO AWAY”

may completely miss part of what is happening.

🔎 LOOK BEYOND SIZE.

Ask about:

⚡ Pain
🟣 Bruising
🕸️ Tissue texture
💪 Disproportion
↔️ Symmetry
🖐️ Hand sparing
⌚ Wrist cuffing
🌸 Hormonal onset or progression
⚖️ What happens to the affected areas when weight changes

And perhaps most importantly:

OBESITY AND LIPEDEMA CAN COEXIST. ONE DOES NOT EXCLUDE THE OTHER.

Recognizing both means we can address both.

🩷 Different tissue. Different problems. Individualized treatment.

Lymphatic Restoration Therapy
Nothing works in isolation. Everything works in combination.™

💬 I'd love to hear from you: Have you lost weight everywhere else but continued to struggle with disproportionately large or painful arms or legs?

Educational information only and not intended to diagnose lipedema or provide individualized medical advice. Lipedema is a clinical diagnosis and other causes of limb enlargement, swelling or pain should be appropriately evaluated.