Pressotherapy in Laval

Generally comfortable. You feel the pressure rise and release in waves starting at the feet; the closest sensation is a blood-pressure cuff. If it becomes painful, too tight, or if it makes the leg go numb, say so straight away so we can stop or adjust the session. Plenty of clients fall asleep.

No, and on that count it is one of the simplest treatments at the institute. The boots go over light clothing, a thin legging, shorts or soft trousers. We provide what you need if you arrive in jeans, which would get in the way of the compression. There is no handling, no direct contact with the skin and no conversation to keep up, which makes it a good first body treatment. Bring socks; they are more comfortable than bare feet inside the boots.

The feeling of lightness can be immediate, but it is temporary. How long it lasts depends above all on why your legs swell, and on what happens next in your day. One session can bring some relief on the day for some people; if it is your daily routine that keeps you still, the treatment belongs to a regular rhythm instead. What genuinely extends the effect is everyday habits: moving every hour, raising your legs in the evening, and following medical advice where therapeutic compression is indicated.

No. The confusion is fed by the fact that a leg that has gone down looks slimmer as you leave, sometimes noticeably at the ankle. What leaves is fluid held in the tissue, not fat. Where real swelling is present, the circumference can temporarily go down. That is not a loss of fat, though, and we do not promise a measurable change after every session. If the swelling returns because your daily routine does not change, the sensation returns too.

At L'Institut Béa, we do not do pressotherapy during pregnancy. That policy is deliberately cautious, and it is frustrating to say, because heavy legs are one of the most common discomforts of pregnancy. Raise it instead with the professional following your pregnancy. If they confirm that an adapted massage or drainage is appropriate, Isabelle can then work out with you what she can do within her scope of practice, in manual lymphatic drainage.

Pressotherapy automatically applies a compression sequence set by the device, over the areas the boots cover. Manual lymphatic drainage is done by hand by Isabelle, who continuously adapts the pressure, the areas and the sequence to what she observes. Pressotherapy is the legs above all, 45 minutes, $45, fully dressed, simple, for a feeling of heavy legs or light swelling. Manual lymphatic drainage is manual work, more individual, which can include other parts of the body, and which comes with a massage therapy receipt.

Pressotherapy can be added to another treatment when it answers a distinct goal, a feeling of heavy legs for example. There is no need to combine it systematically with wood therapy or Slimwave, and we do not present it as a step that clears out what another treatment has displaced. It is also the least demanding treatment in the pillar, so the easiest to add to an already busy day.