1860 Steve Harper Interviews Ann Boone President and Owner of Boone Lymphatics and Massage Therapies

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Hey, welcome back everybody.

Cosmetic surgery has gotten extremely popular in the last few years, and results can be fantastic.

But the healing and the results could be better if you were to also do this one thing.

Actually, you wouldn't do it, but somebody would do it for you.

I'm referring to lymphatic drainage massage.

I'm going to start with that today. She is our, by far, expert, president and owner of Boone Lymphatics and Massage Therapy.

Learned so much ever since we've gotten together with her.

On this very important system in our bodies that is many times overlooked and Boone is back on the program.

How are you doing today?

I'm doing well, Steve. I'm always happy to be here and talk about these things that so many people have questions about.

And it's not kind of a mainstream discussion necessarily.

Should there be lymphatic drainage massage after pretty much every surgery, or if we want to say every major surgery?

There are so many factors that play into that.

What I will say is that, in general, not knowing what anybody else's health issues are.

Like, high blood pressure, any of these kinds of things that we would also look at.

But typically, lymphatic drainage can be very, very helpful after any surgical procedure, knee replacements, hip replacements, shoulder replacements, anything like that.

Especially cosmetic surgeries kind of came to light and fell in my lap in the last couple days.

A client who, they are in this business and are involved in many spas and things like that.

And they were asking me, they were discouraged.

They're only a little bit out, not many weeks out.

And they were discouraged because there were still a lot of pain from what we call a mommy makeover.

It's a tummy tuck and breast augmentation.

And so they're tucking everything out there.

And her doctor had specifically told her that lymphatic drainage wouldn't do anything for her.

Now, what I find is that doctors in this area, in Lexington, Kentucky, and in some other areas, don't have a lot of exposure to the post-op cosmetic lymphatic drainage.

And they call them lymphatic massages.

You go to some place like Miami or out of the country to the Dominican Republic, Brazil, where these are much more prevalent.

It's a given. They don't even, they'll give a whole list of what to do.

So we're in the middle now of educating and convincing surgeons here because we would love to have our clients have their surgeries in town.

Because if you have a complication with a tummy tuck, which is major surgery, they're, they're, it's like an extended cesarean almost without going deep into the abdominal cavity.

But if you have a surgery like that here, or even with the breast augmentation, you have a complication.

No doctor here is going to touch you.

They're just not going to do it because it's somebody else's surgery.

So, yeah.

So the prevalence of this has gone up since 2019, just cosmetic surgeries in general in the last decade have gone up.

Well, since 2010s, if it gone up almost 50% and those are surgical procedures, a lot of cosmetic procedures are.

The prevalence of cosmetic procedures that are non-surgery would be both Botox fillers minimal minimally invasive surgery or procedures like that. Those are very prevalent surgical procedures are about.

About 1 to 2% of the population and some people have more than one procedure. So they're counting just all of the procedures.

So during the pandemic, I saw a huge rise because I think that people were home alone.

They could heal on their own without having to go out those types of things.

But I've noticed a huge increase since 2020 in these procedures and in trying to educate people about why they're important.

Now there's two things I'm seeing that is going on here.

It's feeling better, less pain, but also the cosmetic result.

And you're having cosmetic surgery for a reason you want the best.

Look, so doesn't lymphatic massage support both of those?

It does.

And you're freezing up a little bit on my end here. I'm not sure why.

You look great.

But yes, okay, awesome. Good. That's all that matters.

Just kidding. So yeah, you know, the biggest problem is that, and you and I've discussed this very briefly,

a person has these procedures and they're not cheap. They're expensive.

But they're not educated on the fact that there are expenses and healing that go on once you've had those procedures.

And so the marketing of these procedures, a lot of times people aren't willing to put in the extra cost because you're going a couple times a week.

And Miami, they have people go every single day for a week or two after their surgeries.

And then they they've stretched it out from there. And most people don't stay in Miami for more than a few days.

So educating people on the fact that that's just the beginning.

The surgery is really just the beginning of the process.

And now they've damaged your lymphatic system by separating your skin and sucking fat out.

And then also getting people the idea of this client here, the doctor told her not to wear any kind of compression.

She's wearing a waist binder, which is very common, but that pushes all the fluid down towards your incision, down towards your legs,

and caused that's what she's having a problem. She said she's gained 17 pounds and much of that might be fluid.

So she's, you know, she's very frustrated, which is normal.

But you have that fat being removed, which is going to have an effect on your hormones because estrogen is stored in fat.

So we have to sort of talk people down off the ledge about two, we call it the two or three weeks sort of effect where they're questioning why they did this.

They're angry at themselves or the surgeon, they don't like the results.

And it's a marathon, not a sprint.

So it's going to take at least a year or so to see actual the results you really want.

That's it's going to take a while to heal.

So having said that a lot of times the like her doctor in particular told her not to wear any kind of compression.

So normally we would have them go into what's called the phaja, which is a full body compression.

So once you've had that skin separated and your lymph damage, which it's right under the skin, it's having a hard time trying to figure out where to reroute to.

So manual lymphatic drainage helps that reroute and then the compression supports that technique and that procedure or that modality.

So compression is is crucial for these people and it's just getting the surgeons on board and getting them to understand that this is going to make your work look better.

This is going to make your clients more comfortable quicker and they're going to heal a lot better and they're going to heal a little more quickly.

So when you talk about the rerouting of the lymphatic fluid, once you reroute it, does it remember to go that way in the future or that you have to continually have that kind of therapy?

That's a great question.

So what happens is the vessels have been damaged so the vessels bring lymph to the lymph nodes and these vessels, vessels are recreated.

So they actually form new vessels and over a period of time in the beginning, it's important that we keep encouraging the lymph to go the new route.

And then once we've encouraged it enough and those vessels have started to, we call it lymphio and genesis.

So once they've formed a new pathways, then that the MLD does not have to be done as frequently.

But in the beginning, whether it's cosmetic surgery or especially a woman who's had breast cancer or anybody who said cancer in lymph nodes removed, we have to reroute everything to the new way of flowing.

Wow. Why do you think more cosmetic surgeons don't talk about this because it's healing is important to feel good.

Certainly the cosmetic result is at stake here. What do you think is going on?

You know, I've seen this with oncologists too. I had a client years ago who had had double mastectomy, no radiation or chemo and came in.

I think I might have talked about this last time, but came in with swelling in her upper back and she wanted a deep tissue massage.

And this was about 25 or 30 years ago when I first started studying lymphatic drainage and I didn't feel equipped to, what I did know is that looked like lymph fluid and I was not going to do deep tissue to it because it could have really caused an issue.

So I took her to a physical therapist who did know about this. Her oncologist specifically told her, don't do lymphatic drainage because you'll have to do it for the rest of your life and you'll have to have the bandaging for the rest of your life, which is not accurate.

But I didn't want to say that with my limited knowledge at the time. So when I took her to the PT, the PT told her that was BS and it was the opposite.

So I let the PT do your work, you know. So I think it's about, I think it's about education. I think it's the same reason that doctors don't recommend nutrition, nutritional pathways for health and that type of thing because they have about an hour to 10 hours of nutritional training.

So I think it's about, it's about education and they just don't know enough about it. And as well as, and I understand this completely, things like a tummy tuck, you have to be careful on how you're working around that.

You can't pull on the skin. You could open up their, their work and that would be really a problem.

So I think it's really mainly more than anything. It's just education that there are many or at least a few here in Lexington who we have the training to actually do this work and we want to collaborate with surgeons.

Do you think that many surgeons, especially cosmetic surgeons, aren't going to mention this type of therapy because it's just going to add to the cost of the tummy tuck, talk the mommy makeover. And then the patient's going to see, oh, well, you know, they're suggesting that I have this done. They don't do it. I'll have somebody else do it, but it's an added cost.

You know, I, I see that point. And again, I think it's about the surgeons educating their patients, first of all, to schedule these, these sessions when they schedule their surgery.

What we get a lot of times is people find out about it afterwards and they call us a week after they've had their surgery and we're booked out, you know, with people. So I think it's about educating the surgeons to educate the patients.

And about what proper also what proper lymphatic drainage looks like because in I think we keep railing on Miami, but this is where we're getting a lot of the patients that are coming in and they've had something that didn't even resemble this lymphatic drainage. It was aggressive.

It was painful. It was not done in the right way. So I think again, it goes back to education because I think if somebody is doing their research and not just doing it on TikTok or Instagram,

but looking into real research on PubMed things like this and there aren't a lot of lymphatic studies, especially for cosmetic surgery.

But I think again, it goes all back to to educating people because they think, oh, I can go into Miami and get a cheap surgery.

And then like you said, they're not budgeting for what comes after and the pahas are anywhere from 100 to 300 dollars a piece. You need at least two of them.

You know, those kinds of things. So I think it goes back to education because if you're going to drop that kind of money on a procedure, a lot of people who lost 100 pounds, they want to get rid of that skin.

So, you know, educating people that this is really part of the whole package.

Now, you mentioned before about people, I'm just it could be anywhere, but you mentioned going to Miami and it's being too harsh and rough in terms of the lymphatic massage.

When somebody comes before you, are you able to tell that?

Well, they had they had the they had it done before but it wasn't done right. Can you tell?

Well, first I can tell because a lot of times we're sitting in my chair and they look terrified and I'll ask them what's going on.

And they say, well, the other person really hurt and are you going to do that too?

So it's really about education. You know, as I mentioned, I've got my little fellow back here that I are charts that we educate people about what lymphatic drainage really is and why it's supposed to be gentle and why we're doing things in a particular manner.

I can also tell if a person has had aggressive liposuction if they've had improper compression because they might have what are called LIFO or FAHHA burns.

And I mean, it literally looks like a burn on the skin to where they they have for lack of better terms when they heal. It looks like a potato chip, you know, that kind of like where you've had road rash.

It's when somebody has had really aggressive liposuction or they've been treated a big big trend with treating with machines after surgery.

So people will get radio frequency. These are advertised all over the internet. Sure.

And that is not good because you're adding heat to a system that needs to not be heated.

So we'll see fibrosis. We'll see areas of huckering areas of hardness where the fluid has just stagnated and has not been moved properly.

So one of the biggest things I see with new clients who just had surgery is they're terrified. They've been used. They've been abused.

And I can see, you know, these different, there's all different names of them, radio frequency. Sometimes they use make coolest skin, leave it at that, freeze it if you will.

So I can see, you know, somebody just maybe gets a little hooked on it. Where it's like, all right, I have this done. Let me just do that now. Let me do this now.

But bypassing the lymphatic massage and to your point, I've had it done before, super light touch. It's almost to the point where I thought, this isn't really doing anything. It's so light. It was already relaxing now. I got to say.

Yeah. Yeah. Now it's, again, it's what's been throwing at, what's being thrown at you through the algorithm.

So if you're somebody looking up a lot of things about cosmetic surgery, you're going to get all this radio frequency and all of these, these compression boot things or, you know, pant things that you put on, which are really better for a venous issues, not lymphatic issues.

So you're going to be bombarded by all of this marketing that is not, is marketing. It's not really, it's not accurate in what needs to be done right after surgery.

So people do things they don't know, they do the best they can, they do the best research they can, they ask friends that have had these surgeries, but it's going to be different for every single person.

And yeah. So I mean, it's, it's a conundrum for us because it is a lot about education. And we have to make sure that we're staying within our scope of practice.

So I'll send them to a nutritionist or just let them know what has been suggested as far as, as far as salt intake and things like that and to talk to their doctor, because I think we talked last time about the fact that if somebody has high blood pressure or low blood pressure.

And I'm not a nutritionist. I'm not going to make recommendations on salt intake. So, but that can affect the, the effects of the manual and fatic drainage and of the manual and fatic massage in general and their healing as well.

What do you want somebody to know who's considering cosmetic surgery?

So I would say that you want to make sure that you find somebody in your area if possible that can do the surgery. It may be a little more expensive, but you get what you pay for.

So if you're trying to do bargain discount massage therapy or bargain discount rather cosmetic surgery, you're going to get what you pay for.

So often the surgeons ghost the person afterwards or they give them ridiculous suggestions like have your massage therapist or your boyfriend drain your, you know, your aroma like a pocket of fluid, which is a, it puts you open to a lot of possibility of infection.

I would also say budget ahead of time for what you need and also don't think you're going right back to work or you're going to go on a cruise two weeks later.

That's major surgical issues and that your procedures that you're having. Make sure you have somebody to help you go down with you.

And then also what you know help you when you come back, especially if you have children or anybody else to take care of.

This is not just going down in, I mean, you can't stand up straight for about a week. You're in a lot of pain, you know, you're on pain medications.

You won't be able to drive for a while. So there are a lot of considerations that the surgeons might just say, oh, you're, you know, you're good to go back to work in a couple weeks. You may not be.

So depending on what you do, you won't be able to keep small children. You won't be able to lift them if you have a tummy tuck or even breast augmentation.

So let's say, let's focus on tummy tuck. Let's, let's say somebody had one on average. How long should they have lymphatic massage for?

And maybe, you know, number of sessions, maybe once a week for insert amount of time on average.

On average, depending on the person's healing, we'll have them come a couple times a week for the first month.

And that's the other places we'll talk about three times a week or even more often, but a couple times a week is what most people can handle financially and time wise.

We can even stretch it out to once a week. Usually that is the first four to six weeks, maybe up to eight weeks. And then after that, we go to once a week or once every other week.

And you have to, we have to really sort of gauge how their healing is going. If they're the main thing is patient slash client compliance.

You know, are they moving? Are they wearing the compression? Because the compression, especially as the weather gets hotter, people don't want to be wearing a full body girdle basically.

And they didn't think about that. So I suggest my clients have their surgeries in the fall so that they can heal over the winter and not have to, you know, wear these things in 80 to 100 degree heat.

So that would be the main thing.

And is it reasonable to think that you'll see a better cosmetic result in the incision area if you have lymphatic massage?

Generally, and we are also able to when the, when the incision is well healed, we are also able to do some cupping and some other things on that incision to help to help it not become key loyded.

There are other things they can do, like putting silicone tape over the area, which tends to help with flattening the scar out.

You hear about people talking about breaking up scar tissue. Okay, that's another thing like toxins that are talked about in this business a lot.

You're not breaking up scar tissue. You're not breaking it up. We're just trying to create more sheer between the layers so that there's movement again.

You want it to heal and you want it to bind down in the beginning. So we're going to be very careful about that incision until it's fully healed.

But there are things that we can do the size lymphatic drainage around that. And then also I'll do some cupping once a person is probably eight to 12 weeks out.

I'll do some cupping on their abdominal area and their, their flanks and things like this. So, but it's very individualized.

We, we take a very thorough history and then we monitor the clients along the way and make sure that, you know, some people may go 12 weeks with

lymphatic drainage be great. And then they're good on their own. We also give them some self things that they can do.

A little bit of dry brush, but that comes on dry brush massage that comes on later on.

And yeah, but it really depends on plant patient compliance with their compression and with movement and all of those things that really I could do all the lymphatic drainage in the world.

But if you're not wearing compression or you're not, you're not taking care of yourself in the other ways, we give, we give clients a pretty extensive list of pre-op and post-op considerations.

Dry brush.

Another one is not smoking.

That can, that can dry out while we're talking about that dry brush. You mentioned that once before, you're actually using a dry brush.

You are actually using a dry brush. You're using a natural bristle dry brush. You see these bath brushes that have a handle and laugh in their wooden.

And, excuse me, you often, so a dry brush massage, you want to be moving distally.

So, furthest out from the body to proximal towards the armpits, towards the inguinal area depending on what kind of procedure you've had.

But you don't want to do this too early because, again, we're trying to reduce the inflammation in any kind of what we call hyperemia.

So, when your skin gets really red on the surface from having it rubbed or sometimes from massage, we don't want to create that, especially in the early days of lymphatic drainage.

So, as they move along, they can start to use some dry brush massage, which will help stimulate lymphatic flow.

It's also good for skin health, so skin care. With the surgeries, it's really important to take good care of your skin as well, because it gets very dried out under the fahas and everything.

So, yeah, so you do it before you shower usually, do a little five-minute dry brush.

Hey, you know, that just demonstrates how delicate this is or can be where the massage is with a brush.

Hey, my gosh.

No, and it's very light. You're not doing it hard. You're just trying to stimulate the very, you know, your sensory receptors in the skin, which are going to stimulate the filaments that open up the capillaries of the lymph, the very beginning of the system.

So, yeah, it's a whole thing.

Yeah, there's a lot going on here that many of us don't realize, including some cosmetic surgeons.

Yeah, yeah.

You know what we know. We know what we know.

It's all about proper healing, feeling better, less discomfort.

You are, by far, amazing in this, and it gets, it spreads every single time we get together to cosmetic, you know, now we're talking about cosmetic surgery and your knowledge there.

Never thought we'd ever be talking about that, you know, connected to lymphatic massage.

How do we connect with you? What's the best way?

So that you can go to my website or our website at boonmessagetherapy.com, B-O-O-N-E, M-A-S-S-A-G-E-T-H-E-R-A-P-Y, dot com.

Excuse me, or you can call 859-209-9005, and that's a virtual receptionist who will take a message and we'll call back.

And, yeah, you can schedule in that way as well. You can schedule on our website.

Amazing. Thank you for the insight. You're, of course, in Kentucky. So you got to be there physically present, but you're also an amazing valuable resource for the rest of us if we're not in that area, and I truly appreciate it. Thank you, Ann.

Yeah, thank you. I really appreciate it. And people can contact me to find providers in other areas.

Beautiful. We'll talk soon. We'll be right back.

This is the Global Podcast Network, where executives and professionals connect, share, and inspire. Stay tuned for the conversations that drive success.

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