LYMPH AND MOVEMENT

Welcome to Medicine Health. We're in our series on why can't I get better treatment. So what, what treatment can you do that may help with chronic illness, etc.? Well, this particular module I want to talk about, uh, the idea and the concept and the physiology of your lymph, the fluid in your body that sometimes you don't think about, and also then, uh, what sorts of therapies can be done that may be helpful to lymphatic movement and why that would be useful in Chronic ill person, chronically ill person, somebody not getting better, etc. So like I said in the other modules, we've done some of these on treatments that are, you know, kind of high-tech or they involve, you know, equipment or, you know, more than one doctor or other stuff. And, you know, today in these modules we're focusing on things that either you can do at home or are a little more low impact and easier to get to, etc. So Your lymph is a portion of your vascular system, and so it is a fluid. Now, your lymph, if you were to look at some of it and then you looked at some of your blood, they would look different. They're both fluids, but they kind of have different purposes. So lymph is actually a part of the drainage system from your vascular output. So if you get down your vascular tree and you go through the arterial system down to the capillary bed, the arterial blood's gotten the most oxygen. It's usually got fresh nutrients and other stuff in it. And that's going to go out into the capillary bed at the arterial side. And it's gonna percolate through your cells, usually the fluid part of the blood, the plasma, et cetera. And that's gonna feed your cells and drop off some oxygen, et cetera. And then on the venous side, on the other side of the cells, it's gonna be picked up by the venous blood, which has less oxygen and a little more carbon dioxide to carry around. Then that's gonna go back to the lungs and you're gonna respire the carbon dioxide out, breathe the oxygen in, and it's gonna make the loop again. Now along the way, it can pick up nutrients from your digestive tract and get other good things to distribute around your body. But there is a third part of that system. So we have the arterial system coming in, the venous side on the way out, and the cells are in the middle. Well, you can think of it like a drain at the bottom. So if I got the artery going in and the vein going out, what we have is a slight difference in pressure in versus pressure out. And that difference will leave behind fluid. And so the lymph is there to drain that fluid. So the lymphatic system drains the fluid. And then something you probably have heard of, your lymph nodes, these things like you get a sore throat and this will swell up, etc. Uh, your lymph nodes are there then to sample that fluid as it goes through, and your lymph node— nodes will actually have cells from your immune system in there. So if that fluid is draining out something that's, say, infectious, et cetera, the lymph nodes will sense that as the fluid moves its way through. Excuse me. So that is important. What can go wrong with lymph? Well, the first thing is lymphedema, which means basically the arterial side going in puts out more fluid than the venous side takes away. That extra fluid goes out through the lymph and everybody's happy. If I choke off the lymphatic system by either surgically removing your lymph node or having infectious material or other things going on, then that drain becomes plugged, literally. And so you get more fluid in the area. This is why people who've had lymph node dissections, often for cancer, especially in areas like the axillary area in the upper arm, they will get lymphedema in the area down below where the drainage is supposed to be going. Yeah. to. So lymphedema can not only be problematic because you're swollen and all of that, but also it means that your immune system is not getting a sample of everything that's going through because lymph nodes are gone. There's very slow movement, and the immune response can be slower. So if you have a limb where you have lymphedema chronically and then you get an infection there, that can be, you know, problem because your immune system is a little slow on the uptake there. So how does lymph fit into treatments that can be done, etc.? Well, one treatment that adjusts lymph flow to some degree and helps it move, we've already talked about, which is hydrotherapy. So you can go back to that one and listen to it if you want. But then other things that can do it, one is simply moving your body around. So you've probably heard that, you know, your arterial blood is pumping under reasonably high pressure going around, and then your venous blood is returning at very low pressure. So if you are moving and you're moving your muscles, you're going to pump a lot of venous blood back into your circulation, which is what you want. Lymph is even at a lower pressure. So if, you know, venous pressure is here, lymph is way down here as far as the pressure. So it requires body movement to return back into the circulation. So people will, you know, look to move lymph around, and they might start out by, say, you know, walking and moving the core of the body around. That can be very helpful. Some people will use rebounders, which is like a little trampoline where they bounce up and down, usually holding on to something so they don't fall off. Some people use things that sort of move the lower extremities, vibrate them back and forth. that can be very useful as well. There's— it's not really made for lymph, but there is a bone growth stimulating device that's used by a lot of physical therapists that does vibrating plate tables that actually moves lymph as well as triggering your bones to grow. So many, many things can be helpful with the lymph, but muscle movement is one of the big ones. Now, You might think, okay, I've got arterial blood going in, I got venous blood coming out, I got the lymph collecting it all and sending it to the lymph nodes. Is that where it ends, or does this fluid go anywhere? Well, it turns out that the lymph eventually works its way around, and you have a system that drains your legs and your lower pelvis, etc. And there's a collection area in the abdomen, and then you've got ducts— that ducting that goes up lymph. lymphatic ducting that collects from the upper extremities and the chest. And all of that goes into the venous circulation. So, it goes back into the blood eventually. So, it's a closed circuit. It recycles all of that good stuff. Now, the other thing that you might think is, you know, well, I've heard that lymph is sort of a milky-colored fluid, and where does that come from? Well, There's another part of lymph that sometimes is forgotten about because it's a real thing, but sometimes a footnote, and that is that there are small lymph vessels, they're capillary size and larger, that go into the cells in your digestive tract that absorb your food, and they're called the lacteals. So they were originally named, and they looked milky, so they named them with the Latin root lact for milk, so lacteal. And the lacteals in your digestive tract are not there for water-soluble nutrients at all. They're there for fat-soluble nutrients. So if you are absorbing fat and any fat-soluble vitamin, any plain old fat or essential fatty acids or anything with fat in it, that is not going to go into the blood from your gut, believe it or not. It's going to go in the lymph. So the other part of the lymph is absorbing fat and fatty nutrients, etc., taking them into the body, circulating them around, and then through the lymph, and then eventually dumping them into the venous circulation. So we always do wind up with those fats getting back into the blood. It's just they take a little bit longer trip. So that's why lymph kind of looks milky, or you think of it as a milky substance. So it's— it is produced from the net difference between arterial and venous flow through your capillaries and also through fats and fatty acids, et cetera, that are absorbed in the GI tract that go in and eventually get to the blood. So other things about lymph and lymph movement. So I mentioned earlier that some of the contrast-type therapies like contrast hydrotherapy, where heating up, cooling down, heating up, cooling down, that'll move the lymph. One of the best ways to move lymph is moving your body, and especially your lower extremities, because we all know that blood can pool in the lower extremity, but also lymph can kind of pool down there too because it's such a low-pressure system. And then you have the movement of the body, either just walking or working out. Both of those will help. The other thing would be movement up and down, jumping, vibration, et cetera. But the better that you turn over your lymphatic fluid, it's similar to turning over your venous fluid because that's eventually where it winds up. The more you turn it over, the more that you get the benefit of a few things. One is the nutrient fats that have gone in through the digestive system. So those need to get in, in your blood. But then also the lymph that's percolated through the lymph nodes and the immune system has looked and seen what's there. The immune system can then send out information to the rest of the immune system and say, hey, in this lymph node we found this. And so the rest of the immune system, let's say, of immune memory cells to whatever the problem is, will light back up and help you. So some people ask, well, what happens when, you know, I get a sore throat and these little nodules come up, these little lumps come up around here? Or maybe you've had like a nose or eye infection and get some lumpy things here along the front of your ears, etc. We've got lymph nodes all over the place. Okay, there's the famous ones that are up in the head and neck and around the elbow and in the lower extremities and the pelvis, etc., but they're really all over the place. And as I said, they're also all over your digestive tract in the absorptive tissues. So the lymph nodes If they are sampling something out of this drainage through your tissue system and there's a bug in there, whether your immune system has seen it before or not, the bacteria or virus or whatever will be sequestered in the lymph node, and the, the immune war will start right there. And the lymph node then will get very swollen in many cases and hard, and, and because there's literal immune war going on trying to kill this thing. Now the other thing that it's doing is it's helping with something called APCs or antigen-presenting cells, and those cells then are going to take a sample of the bug that's being fought with, and they're going to go and they're going to get into the bloodstream and go tell other parts of the immune system, hey, we've got this bug here. And then your immune system has kind of 2 options. One is Is there, um, any particular memory to this bug, or is it a new one? If there's memory, it'll go right into producing memory B and T cells. If it's a new one, it'll go into the new production side. So lymph and lymph movement can be done very simply by moving your body around. It can be done by contrast, hot and cold, any number of things. And just like getting the venous blood return out of your legs, getting the lymph moved around your body will increase your body's ability to create a healthy environment. We're all done for that one. Please like, share, and subscribe, whatever, uh, format you're on. Thanks for growing the YouTube channel. I'll see you on the next one.