IDAHO FALLS — Wade admits he was skeptical at first.

He had just spent 110 days on a ventilator battling COVID-19 through the holiday season. Miraculously, he emerged alive, but the virus had taken a toll on his 60-something-year-old body. COVID-19 was hard on his heart and kidneys, and as he took his first steps out of the ICU, he was provided no map along his road to recovery.

(For patient privacy purposes, the East Idaho Business Journal is only using Wade’s first name for this article.)

So when Wade was referred to Scottie Schmalz-Hope at Edema Therapy Solutions, he didn’t quite know what to expect from someone who specializes in the treatment of swelling. But, he thought, “I’ll try anything to get moving again.”

“I had a lot of swelling,” said Wade, an Idaho Falls resident. “My hands and my feet were very swollen. I could not walk up stairs.”

Edema therapy is not new, but the Idaho Falls business is the first of its kind in East Idaho.

Edema Therapy Solutions

Scottie Schmalz-Hope poses for a photo at Edema Therapy Solutions on Thursday, May 12, 2021.

“It’s not sexy,” joked Schmalz-Hope of the work that she does. “I have been a physical therapist for 15 years and have been doing this kind of therapy for 11 years now. No one really wants to do edema because it's not very exciting. Basically, I wrap legs and arms.”

Of course there’s a little more to it. Schmalz-Hope specializes in the lymphatic system of the body where the lymph nodes reside. These little but mighty nodes are part of our immune system and vital to fighting infection by filtering fluid and waste from our body’s tissues. When the lymph nodes are injured or disrupted in some way, fluid can become blocked. The resulting condition is called lymphedema. To us lay folk, this is known as swelling.

Edema Therapy Solutions

An exam room is seen at Edema Therapy Solutions on Thursday, May 12, 2021.

“I see a lot of people who have had cancer treatments and have developed lymphedema because the lymph nodes have been damaged,” Schmalz-Hope said. “This is also common for people who have heart or kidney failure or who are recovering from surgery, and then the next thing you know you have some store clerk handing you a box of compression socks to address the swelling. Sometimes chronic swelling requires specialized treatment and I am glad to be a resource for area patients and providers.”

More recently, Schmalz-Hope has seen an uptick in COVID-19 patients coming to her for help. She said that while there is so much more to learn about the body’s recovery from COVID-19, inflammation and swelling have been consistent for those recovering from severe cases.

When Wade started therapy with Schmalz-Hope, he couldn’t wear his shoes because of the swelling. In a month, he said, he dropped 20 pounds of fluid and put on his tennis shoes for the first time since he went into the hospital for COVID-19 in December. He credits Schmalz-Hope for so much of his progress,

“When I was transferred off the ventilator, I could hardly move. I could only blink,” Wade said. “The improvements have been slow, but I believe this is working. I’ve come a long way from blinking to walking. Now I’m walking up and down stairs and driving a little. I walk maybe 150 feet before I have to stop and take a break.”

“We measure success in centimeters,” Schmalz-Hope said. “Literally. I measure patients’ progress every week as we go to work on getting the lymph system activated.”

Through light massage, Schmalz-Hope tells the garbage in the body where to go.

“It’s like pond water sitting in your body and we tell it how to drain,” she said. “Once the lymph system is damaged, it doesn’t come back, but we can help through manual lymphatic drainage.”

Schmalz-Hope grew up in Southeast Idaho and earned her Doctorate of Physical Therapy from Idaho State University in 2005. She traveled the world and spent time working for larger medical facilities including the Huntsman Cancer Institute in Salt Lake City before deciding it was time to come back home — even if it's colder here than she remembered.

“I feel like the medical care here in Idaho Falls is better than the bigger cities and I feel like I can be more personable in a smaller practice,” she said.

Edema Therapy Solutions is located at 3920 Washington Parkway in Idaho Falls. Schmalz-Hope can be reached at scottie@edematherapysolutions.com or by calling 208-569-2141.

As for Wade, he said he’s certain he will have his cowboy boots on before he knows it.