GREENVILLE — Local breast cancer patients afflicted with lymphedema are able to, quite literally, have a little weight lifted off of their shoulders thanks to Martha Hamilton, a lymphedema specialist at Hunt Regional Medical Center (HRMC).

Hamilton, who has worked in the health care industry for more than 30 years and has more than 140 hours of specialty training, received her lymphedema therapy certification three years ago. There are currently only 83 such specialists in Texas, and most of them are based out of metropolitan areas, making Hamilton a rarity in rural East Texas.

“I’ve been (at HRMC) for eight years, and the hospital had countless people call about this treatment for their condition,” Hamilton said. “We actually had a cancer patient at our hospital who developed lymphedema, and we didn’t have the slightest idea what to do about it apart from sending her somewhere else because the hospital didn’t offer that service at the time. So I saw the need, and then I went for my first class on manual lymph drainage, and it was eye opening. It just felt right.”

Lymphedema is a condition that can be side effect of cancer treatments, where cancer-afflicted lymph nodes must oftentimes be removed during mastectomies and lumpectomies. Their removal leaves the lymph vessels unable to move protein-rich fluids back into the circulatory system. With no way to move on, the fluid begins to accumulate, resulting in swelling and thickening of the tissues in the epidermis, and entire limbs can grow to twice their normal size.

“It’s kind of like shutting down a sewer system in the middle of a rain storm,” Hamilton said.

Afflicted patients report symptoms such as extreme heaviness in their limbs, resulting in extreme discomfort and even pain. Some patients also form lowered self-esteem and sometimes depression as their normal clothes become ill fitting and unwearable as a result of the swelling in their limbs.

Lillie Pritchett, a breast cancer survivor, had several lymph nodes removed from her under-arm during a lumpectomy, resulting in the swelling of her limb by 12 percent.

“It causes a little bit of pain, and you don’t have as much movement in your shoulder as you did before,” Pritchett said. “You don’t feel normal. And if you think about it going on for the rest of your life, it’s kind of depressing.”

Hamilton said that, while lymphedema is not a curable condition, it is manageable through the techniques she provides and teaches.

“After we assess the specific situation of the patient, we pursue a specialized technique called manual lymph drainage (MLD) and we use that to re-route the lymph to working nodes,” Hamilton said. “MLD helps get the protein out of the tissues where we can get some of the swelling down. If we couple MLD with compression garments and exercise, as well as teach our patients how to take care of themselves through things like skin care and how to watch for infections, which is one of our biggest issues, then they can have a life where their limbs aren’t twice their normal size.”

Pritchett, who has seen a decrease in her swelling from 12 percent to 1.5 percent over the course of just five sessions, said the service Hamilton provides has proved to be invaluable to her quality of life.

“Everything she does works very well, and every doctor I have been to really admires her work,” Pritchett said. “She shows you a lot of very simple techniques that you can do yourself, like limb massages, to help get the lymph system working and reduce the swelling when you’re not with her in treatment. I’ve been very happy with it. She’s very kind, very reassuring, and she showed me that the discomfort I felt as a result of the lymphedema didn’t have to be my life.”

Hamilton said it is stories like Pritchett’s that make the job worth it.

“I spend a lot of time with these people, and it’s working on them and feeling the changes in their tissues while witnessing the corresponding change in them personally — with them going from feeling terrible to seeing them have the confidence to speak up and take care of themselves without much outside help — that make it such a wonderful thing to be a part of that process,” she said.

Thanks to Hamilton, Pritchett’s visits have been cut down to just once every other week, so long as she maintains the home therapy techniques taught to her by Hamilton.

“As you get better, the visits become more infrequent, and Martha said that if you do everything she says, that her whole job is supposed to become extinct,” Pritchett said with a laugh. “I’m amazed that something so simple could have such an incredible impact on my life. I know now why everyone at the hospital admires her so much.”