Lymph drainage and its uses
Lymph drainage, lymphatic massage and lymph decongestion techniques are different ways of describing very similar treatments.
What is lymph?
Lymph is the gooey fluid that drains throughout your body, containing waste from your cells, dead bacteria and used up white blood cells, among other general cellular debris.
Blood delivers nutrition and takes away some waste, but lots of the by-products of your cell’s chemical reactions end up in your lymph system.
Where is it?
When you’re fighting off a bug, you may feel swollen lymph glands in your neck, armpits, or groin, but most of the time they shouldn’t be noticeable. The reason they swell up when you’re fighting infection is because they become congested with all the extra dead bacteria or virus, and the used up white blood cells that your body has created for the fight. Lymph is concentrated in drainage points (glands) but is all over the body.
Why do the lymph glands swell?
The glands may become more swollen with infection, dehydration, or with mechanical blockages in your body that slow the drainage down. Unlike your blood, which has your heart working to move it around, lymph drainage has no pump as such, and relies on muscle contractions and negative pressures to drain.
Because of this more subtle drainage system, it’s easier for your lymph drainage to become blocked up, or get bottlenecked at certain major drainage junctions in your body. This is most common around your neck and collarbones, and in your armpits and groin, but it can happen anywhere, as the lymph network is intricately laid throughout the whole body, including nearby the gut and other internal organs.
Sometimes, some lymph glands are removed as part of a mastectomy. This can lead to swelling and soreness in the arm on the affected side, and difficulty using that arm properly. This is because the lymph glands provide a drainage portal for the lymph, and without the glands, it’s trickier for the lymph to move from the limb into the main drainage highway in the chest.
Lymph and Fatigue
It is common for lymph congestion to occur when someone is suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), or ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis). This can exacerbate symptoms and make the CFS sufferer feel more tired and ill. Poor lymph drainage throughout the body (and the brain’s version of it, which is helpfully called glymph), can make someone feel bloated, sore, tired, weak, irritated, foggy-brained, and forgetful.
What can Osteopathy do?
Osteopaths can use a variety of techniques to help drain lymph away. Osteopathy can help keep your lymph moving and clear the way for new white blood cells to keep doing an efficient job of protecting your body.
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Perrin Technique
Lymph drainage
Lymphatic treatment
Chronic fatigue
ME
CFS
Mastectomy recovery
