Lymph is a by-product of blood flow. With inflammation, we have more blood flow and then more lymph. Therefore, inflammation affects the lymphatic system.
Imagine chronic inflammation, like in the case of an autoimmune disease. This looks like turning the shower water off and putting the bathtub water on a slow steady stream forever. There is always a small amount of standing water in the bathtub because this stream is always larger than the amount of shower water and your drains can only handle the amount of water produced when the shower is turned on.
Now imagine lymphedema, which can be from lymph node removal, trauma, radiation or scar tissue. This is like taking away some of the drains. There is no excess water, just not enough drains to allow for no standing water.
Now imagine an acute injury or trauma like a sprained ankle – this looks like turning the shower water off and putting the bathtub water on full blast for a short period of time. Let’s say 20 mins. There is standing water but eventually your body (the bathtub drains) are able to move this excess fluid through, leaving no standing water after a couple of days.
We look at all of the above factors that could play a role in inflammation and then assign them as either a pebble, rock or boulder.
We imagine a cylindrical vase filled half way with water and start adding in your individual inflammatory factors into the vase. We begin to see symptoms of inflammation when the vase overflows.
For example, if you have an autoimmune disease (this would be a boulder), have a sensitivity to gluten (pebble) and a close relative just passed away (rock), this could be enough to tip the water over the edge. We often make referrals to other professionals that can help manage your pebbles, rocks and boulders so we can focus on what we do, which is treat the overflow of inflammation (i.e. lymphatic fluid) that we see.
