Your first lymphatic drainage session, minute by minute.

Book online through Jane, our scheduling system, at either the Lougheed or New Westminster studio. The booking links on this page go straight to Arra's calendar. If your situation involves recent surgery, cancer treatment, a heart or kidney condition, or anything else from the safety guide in this hub, mention it in the booking notes so the first visit is planned properly.

Bring the boring paperwork: a list of medications, the dates and names of any recent procedures, your surgeon's aftercare instructions if this is post-surgical, and your extended health details if you want direct billing. Five minutes of preparation makes the intake faster and the plan better.

Wear or bring comfortable clothing. MLD treats specific regions in sequence, and standard draping applies throughout: only the area being treated is undraped, exactly as in any registered massage therapy session in BC.

The first part of the appointment is a conversation. What brings you in, how the swelling behaves through a day, what makes it better or worse, your medical history, medications, surgeries and anything else relevant. For MLD this step carries real clinical weight, because a short list of conditions makes the treatment unsafe, and the intake is where they get caught.

Expect direct questions about infections, blood clots, heart function and cancer history. They are not small talk. MLD moves fluid into your circulation, and each of those conditions changes whether that is a good idea today. If anything needs a physician's clearance first, you will hear it now, before any treatment, and rebooking is easy.

Then comes a look at the areas of concern: how the swelling sits, how the skin behaves when pressed, what the joints nearby are doing. Together, the history and assessment turn into a plan you will hear out loud: what will be treated today, in what order, and why.

MLD starts in a place that surprises people: usually near the collarbones and neck, then regions closer to the body's centre, before the swollen area itself gets attention. The logic is plumbing. Downstream pathways get cleared first so the fluid from the congested area has somewhere to go. Trust the sequence; it is the method working as designed.

The strokes themselves are slow, rhythmic stretches of the skin, applied with bare hands and repeated in patterns that follow the lymphatic pathways. Pressure stays feather-light throughout, because the vessels being treated sit just under the skin and collapse under force. Nothing should hurt at any point. Tell your therapist immediately if anything does.

Most people find the rhythm deeply calming, and falling asleep on the table is common and completely fine. Treatment time within the 45 to 90 minute appointment depends on how many regions are involved. One puffy ankle needs less territory than post-abdominal-surgery care.

You will not walk out transformed, and no honest therapist promises that. What clients typically report is the treated area feeling softer, lighter or less tight, sometimes immediately, sometimes over the following day. Some people feel thirsty or notice they urinate more in the hours after treatment; drink water normally and carry on.

The homework matters as much as the table time. Depending on your situation it may include elevation habits, specific gentle movements, deep-breathing work, skin care, or compression as prescribed by your medical team. Your lymphatic system works around the clock, and the between-session routine is what supports it for the other 167 hours of the week.

Before you leave, you will get a frequency suggestion: how often to come, and for roughly how long, based on how your tissue responded. That plan is a starting hypothesis, and it gets adjusted at every visit based on what actually happens.

Follow-ups skip the long intake and get to work faster: a short check-in on how the area responded, a quick look, then treatment. They are usually booked at the length your plan needs rather than the longer first-visit slot, which also makes them cheaper. Current session prices are on our rates page, and the cost and insurance guide in this hub explains how extended health, ICBC and MSP apply.

One session is rarely the whole story, but neither is an endless subscription. The honest shape of most MLD care is a short run of sessions with visible response, then tapering. If the area is not responding after a fair trial, your therapist should say so and talk about what else might help, including referral back to your physician. Ours will.