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ARTICLES
ABOUT LYMPH DRAINAGE AND OTHER
BODYWORK TECHNIQUES
The Human Touch
Kristen Guzzardo
What do massage therapists, raw vegans and plastic surgeons have in
common? They both advocate for the holistic therapy known as Lymph
Drainage. Lymph Drainage takes on a two different forms—manual
and bioelectric—and has been characterized as a beneficial treatment
for inflammation, chronic pain, allergies, skin disorders and post-operative
recovery
As a part of the body’s immune system, the lymphatic system
filters toxins and other foreign particles out of the blood stream
by circulating through the lymph nodes, and excreting them through
urination and sweat. Our body’s ability to eliminate waste from
its tissue is dependent in large part on the circulation component
of this process, which is where Lymph Drainage therapy comes into
play.
Manual Lymph Drainage (MLD) is a light massage technique that uses
gentle pressure to move lymph in areas where it may otherwise lay
dormant. A technique called the Dr. Vodder Method of Manual Lymph
Drainage was developed by Dr. Emil Vodder (born Copenhagen 1896),
when he discovered he could use massage to intuitively address swollen
lymph nodes. According to Roger Hughes, certified Vodder therapist,
this technique has decongestive results.
“The practitioner can see, observe and feel when the lymph moves,”
he says. “There is nothing better than human touch.”
A technique called Bioelectric Lymph Drainage is practiced using an
electrical pulse that runs through a glass tube, or wand. The belief
is that all cells have an electromagnetic frequency, and will have
a healing response to low frequency electrical pulses. The practitioner
slides the wands across the skin, which moves the lymph fluid through
the nodes and out of the body. Unlike the manual technique, bioelectric
does not have to follow the specific pathways of the lymphatic system.
This can be benefi cial for people with limited mobility, or those
who may receive treatment from a wheelchair.
Valentina Norcross is a health practitioner who says lymph drainage
has shown her greater results than other diets and therapies.
“Beyond my twenty years of raw foodism, I’m at a point
where I don’t think diet is as important as slowing down and
alleviating stress,” she says. “People are in emotional
patterns that keep them gravitating to food to sedate themselves,
but changing the habit is still like a Band-Aid. The lymphatic system
gets to the root of what is flowing through our bodies and what is
not. Lymphatic work gets rid of the emotional waste on the same parallel
that it gets rid of physical waste.”
The following are places to find Lymph Drainage in the Chicagoland
area. Sessions can range from 30-60 minutes each, and cost between
$40-$90 per treatment.
Chicago Massage Works, 3354 N. Paulina Ave., Ste. 206F, Chicago;
773.865.7857
Madge Lockwood, certified Vodder therapist, was classically trained
in the Dr. Vodder method of MLD in its country of origin, Germany.
Her work runs the gamut from athletes in recovery, post-operative
and lymphedema patients, autoimmune disease, and common issues like
allergies and headaches.
Listening Touch Massage & Bodywork, 3354 N. Paulina Ave.,
Ste.207, Chicago; 773. 726.8733
Certified in MLD, Laura Rose Boyle is also a teacher of massage and
bodywork in Chicagoland. In addition to her work with massage and
MLD for everyday issues, she has extensive experience working with
breast cancer patients. She helped start a program at Mercy Hospital
that uses MLD as a complementary therapy for cancer patients after
treatment.
Solace Clinical Massage, 948 W. Huron St., Chicago; 773.383.2425
Charlotte Phillips,certified Vodder therapist,has a passion for post-operative
therapies that help patients continue to heal beyond the doctor’s
care.She says that plastic surgeons tend to recommend MLD for patients
who experience swelling after cosmetic or plastic surgeries,which
shows the potential for MLD to rise in popularity.She describes her
technique as “having a conversation with your body to facilitate
responsive healing and connectedness back to itself.”
Shen Shen Health and Harmony, 2764 N. Lincoln Ave., Chicago;
773.935.4325
Praxis Chiropractic, 1525 E. 55th St., Ste. 300 Chicago; 773.726.0570
Roger Hughes is the certified Vodder therapist at two Chicago practices.
Opening with a conversation about a person’s current state of
wellness, he will target each MLD session toward the specific ailment—starting
with the neck, abdomen or feet appropriately.With everyday stresses
and circumstances constantly changing, a patient may have varying
needs on any given day.
Inside and Out Purification by Valentina, 1490 Old Deerfield
Rd., Highland Pk., Ill; 312.898.4114
Valentina Norcross is a health practitioner who practices Bioelectric
Lymph Drainage, citing electromagnetic energy as potentially 8-10
times faster at moving lymph fluid than manual practice. She emphasizes
the connectedness of lymph flow to ailments that affect a broad audience
like hormone imbalance, digestive and bowel problems and toxicity.
Karyn’s Inner Beauty Center, 1901 N. Halsted St., Chicago; 312.255.1590
Janet Merrills practices Bioelectric Lymph Drainage in the spa adjacent
to Karyn’s Raw Café in Lincoln Park, where the philosophy
is to “support the body’s natural design through food
and holistic therapies.” At Karyn’s, unique to the clinical
setting, the aesthetic is that of a retreat or spa, which is there
to help clients relax and enjoy the treatment.
Nothing to sneeze at...
Clare La Plante,
June 21, 2009
David Lies, a massage therapist in Wichita, Kansas, remembers his honeymoon
well: The lush, nascent flowers and trees of early May in Eureka Springs,
Arkansas; time relaxing with his new wife, Linda; the rustic honeymoon
cottage—and his allergies, triggered by the colorful blooms around
him. “I used to say that I was allergic to everything under the
sun,” Lies says.
Lies discovered an unexpected ally in his allergy battle: The honeymoon
cottage’s landlord, who was also a massage therapist. “He
offered to give my wife and me massages,” says Lies, who finally
said yes when his swollen eyes, nonstop sneezing and coughing fits started
to put a damper on his honeymoon.
Lies remembers the horrible pain as the therapist dug his elbow into
his back along the muscles and trigger points long contracted from coughing,
sneezing and related stress. Just as he was about to cry uncle, the
therapist removed his elbow—or so Lies thought as he thanked him.
His wife, who was watching the session, laughed. “He hasn’t
moved his elbow at all,” she told Lies. The muscles had simply
finally relaxed.
After the massage, Lies made it through the week with just a few sniffles,
his first nondrug-induced relief in years. He returned to Wichita inspired,
enrolling in massage school and eventually opening A Servant’s
Hands, a full-service massage therapy clinic with a special interest
in allergies. Not a bad specialty these days, it turns out.
Allergy Basics
According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthmas and Immunology,
allergies affect more than 50 million Americans, making it the country’s
fifth most chronic disease, third among children. We spend around 7.9
billion dollars a year on treatment—about 4.5 million on direct
care and 3.4 billion on indirect care, including lost work.
Allergies are, in the simplest sense, the body overachieving. “Your
immune system is reacting to things it shouldn’t be reacting to,”
says Leonard Bielory, MD, director of the Asthma & Allergy Research
Center at New Jersey Medical School. “Your body goes on high alert
against normally innocuous substances, like cat hair, pollen or peanuts.”
In this reaction the body’s mast cells, which are loaded with
chemical-like histamines and other granules, break open and release
these substances, which in turn hurt the body. The result can be everything
from life-threatening anaphylactic shock to the more benign runny nose,
foggy thinking and low-grade chronic cough. Of course, you can suffer
in many other ways as well, including gas and bloating, eczema, sinusitis,
earaches and headaches, and even joint pain, migraines and depression.
Relaxing the Symptoms
Many Americans rely primarily on conventional treatments, including
antihistamines and steroids, both of which can have some adverse side
effects. Massage therapists, however, can help relieve some allergy
symptoms by reducing stress, increasing circulation, releasing muscle
tension and reprogramming the body’s panic reaction, which can
exacerbate symptoms.
“It’s not to take away from the biological, inflammatory
component of the disorder,” says Rosalind Wright, MD, a pulmonist
on staff at the Harvard Medical School. “But if you use complementary
modalities, including massage therapy, you could optimize the results.”
Few studies researching massage therapy and allergy relief exist, but
we do know massage helps with stress, as shown in the 1992 Touch Research
Institute study where 30-minute body massages on depressed adolescents
decreased saliva cortisol levels. And stress definitely impacts allergies.
A 2008 Harvard Medical School study co-authored by Wright showed that
mothers-to-be who expose their unborn children to stress may increase
these kids’ vulnerability to allergies and asthma.
Wright says that these stressors act like “social pollutants”
breathed through the body, influencing the body’s immune response.
“Just as you can breathe in an allergen like dust mites or ragweed,
you can breathe in stress,” she says. “You take it into
your body and it operates in similar types of pathways.” So just
getting clients to relax may help their allergies. “Most experienced
massage therapists know the immediate relief from sinus congestion that
can result from just lying face down,” Lies says. This position
gives you a chance to work on the upper back and shoulders, where many
sinus trigger points are located.
Getting More Specific
Roy Desjarlais, a massage and craniosacral therapist, and vice president
of clinical services at the Upledger Institute, says that calming the
muscles around the clavicle and neck area is also helpful in mitigating
the fight-or-flight response brought on by allergies, along with its
concomitant symptoms, such as hiking the shoulders, holding the breath
and tightening the throat. “Anything that works with upper chest
and neck will … engage an area relating to the reticular alarm
system, which is the system in our autonomic nervous system that responds
to fear and anxiety,” he says.
Specifically, Desjarlais recommends working the sternoclemastoid muscle,
pectoralis major and minor, the subclavius and all the posterior neck
muscles going into the occipital muscle. You choose the type of strokes,
he says, as long as they’re calming. “This is where the
art of massage comes in,” he adds.
Desjarlais also recommends referring to a simple reflexology chart to
activate the trigger points on the feet for the thymus gland, the master
gland for the immune system, and pituitary gland, the master gland for
the endocrine system.
The head offers its own relief, too. “When muscles tighten up
around the head, it restricts blood flow and closes up sinuses,”
says Lies. A simple head massage can help loosen these muscles.
Another technique that can help allergies is lymphatic massage, which
can help reduce inflammation, remove toxins and support the immune system.
“The lymph system is the system best suited to move those accumulated
protein molecules and other wastes out of the area,” says Roger
Hughes, a therapist and certified Dr. Vodder Method of Manual Lymph
Drainage practitioner. He’s had successes over the years working
with long-time allergy sufferers, including children with food allergies
who also have frequent ear infections. In the Vodder method, the strokes
are light. “Forty percent of the lymphatic system is right under
the skin,” Hughes explains. “Therefore, light, pleasurable,
rhythmic touch is the mainstay of the Vodder method.”
Also, one-third of the lymph nodes are in the neck. Hughes begins his
sessions there, where he says he’s “opening the lymph faucet.”
Although Hughes encourages therapists to honor the practice of referring
to certified practitioners of lymph drainage for expert treatment, “working
with mindfulness, presence and intention is more powerful than people
realize,” he says. “You’re helping that person let
go of himself, and let go of unconscious tension. This, in turn, will
let all the fluids in the body—the blood, lymph and nerves—flow
more easily.”
Desjarlais agrees, and says setting an intention is a practice like
meditation—to continually bring yourself back to the issue at
hand. It’s a practice he brings to his work in craniosacral therapy,
an osteopathic discipline that uses specific techniques to move the
cerebral spinal fluid and to calm the nervous system. Other craniosacral
techniques impact the immune system through the endocrine glands and
increase overall fluid exchange, all very helpful in allergy relief.
Craniosacral therapy also helps to change some deeply patterned responses.
“Sometimes the reason we react to an allergen is habitual—we
get grooved neurologically and physiologically, and sometimes when we
break these groove reaction cycles, the body doesn’t react to
the allergens anymore,” says Desjarlais. This happened to Desjarlais
himself, who had a longtime allergy to shellfish that caused his throat
to swell and his stomach to cramp. Now, he can eat shellfish with only
a mild scratchy throat afterward. Part of the beauty of craniosacral
work is that even taking beginning courses can allow you to incorporate
some of the techniques into your practice. “Anyone can apply it
to their own work,” says Desjarlais.
Setting an Example
Massage therapists can also help clients with allergies by modeling
good lifestyle choices, and by educating clients on the same. “I
do massage therapy for pain relief,” says Jordan Rothstein, owner
of the Body Technician in Berkeley, California. “However, I view
my job as bigger than massage therapy—it’s whatever will
help the person get out of pain, within appropriate limits.”
In his experience, one common, unrecognized cause of pain is food allergies
or intolerances, which can cause inflammation and muscle tension. To
get the message through, Rothstein uses patience and repetition.
He might ask his clients to read his website, for example, which contains
information on food sensitivities.
He also hands out a food information sheet that encourages his clients
to self-screen for these same allergies and sensitivities.
According to Amy Lanou, PhD, an assistant professor in health and wellness
at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, there are two types
of allergic responses from food. One, a food allergy, can progress to
anaphylactic shock. “However, a fairly large proportion of the
population has a lower level of immune response to common foods, including
wheat, gluten, milk, eggs and other dairy products,” she says.
According to Lanou, the interesting thing about these reactions is that
they don’t send you to the hospital. “But they do increase
your response to other allergens,” she explains. For example,
if you have a low-grade response to gluten and you consume it on a regular
basis, your response to other allergies, such as pet dander or pollen,
will be aggravated. “Those foods could make your immune system
cranky and agitated,” she says.
Stephen Wangen, a Seattle-based naturopath and medical director for
the Center for Food Allergies, says these types of food sensitivities
are rampant, and often unrecognized. He believes massage therapists
can play a helpful role in alerting clients. “First of all,”
he says, “massage therapy is always valuable. However, if massage
therapists would recognize that there is a very big potential for the
basic foods that clients are eating to be triggering some of their symptoms,
then the massage work can go deeper and you can make better long-term
progress with clients instead of starting over and over again. I’ve
seen it happen many times.” And, dear therapist, heal thyself.
“You need to take care of your own allergic reactions,”
says Hughes. “If the person on the table senses any tension in
the therapist that can go right into the receiver’s body.”
That means receiving regular massage work yourself, following a healthy
lifestyle and living a low-stress life.
This is what Lies has done, and his sneezing, coughing, wheezing days
from all those years ago in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, are almost over.
“You have to know how to take care of yourself,” he says.
“And realize that we already have the resources within our own
bodies … For the majority of people, massage will help.”
Keeping Your Massage Office Allergen Free
Susan Polano, CMP, owner of Oceana Massage in Vancouver, British Columbia,
says that the various chemicals we’re exposed to in our everyday
lives, including room sprays, soaps, shampoos and cleaning supplies,
can exacerbate allergic responses. “There are so many chemicals
in these products, and they build up in our systems, causing all sorts
of things that we attribute to the natural wear and tear of life,”
says Polano. Some particularly bad culprits include air fresheners,
carpet shampoos, mold and mildew cleaners, toilet bowl cleaners and
laundry products.
1. Recommend—and model—organic products in your office.
You can use essential oils in your laundry, and always use therapeutic
grade, organic oils. You can use gentle, natural cleaners for your floors
and furniture.
2. Install an air purifier and water purifier in your HOME or office.
Alternatively, keep air-purifying plants, such as spider plants, holy
basil, bamboo plants, Boston fern and the peace lily in your space.
3. Keep your office well-dusted. Don’t forget the walls, shelves
and window ledges.
4. Watch what you wear. Perfumes, deodorants and moisturizers can all
irritate sensitive noses. Try natural alternatives, or nothing at all!
Polano uses a few drops of rosemary in her natural shampoo.
And of course, if you still smoke, this is one more reason to quit.
Not only will you help yourself, you’ll protect your sensitive
clients from lingering smells on your body and clothes.
773.935.HEAL
(4325)
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