The soft matter that moves through the vessels of our body, that we often think of as fluid, is an important part of transporting and delivering nutrients and removing waste. Our arteries carry the nutrient rich blood with things like oxygen and sugar for energy from the heart to all our tissues, and veins carry the blood that didn’t leave the artery system back to the heart. Our lymphatic vessels pick up the waste that has gotten into our tissues outside of the blood and carry it as lymph (protein rich fluid) which needs to be returned to our venous angle and then to the heart or to the kidneys and liver to expel them.

Lymph vessels helps transport extra water outside of the blood, larger molecules like proteins, bigger fats and cells called lymph. They carry it to groups of nodes that the lymph vessels go in and out of that act like factories that cleanup the lymph, fight invaders, and choose what to expel. The whole lymphatic system impacts our immune system. We have a problem with our lymphatic system called lymphedema when we have swelling that isn’t shortly after an injury or surgery or burn. The gold standard to treating lymphedema is Complete Decongestive Therapy (CDT) – a combination of Manual Lymph Drainage (MLD) therapy, compression and exercise while compression is on. MLD is a specialized hands on treatment by someone specialized in helping move lymph fluid and choosing where it is best to be moved. It is not good for someone with lymphedema to have a type of massage that stimulates extra blood circulation to come to an area and deposit extra fluid into the space in the tissues when their lymphatic system isn’t able to remove much fluid at a time. Amy is certified in CDT.

Having the organs related to our blood be in a good situation in our body and helping our diaphragm muscle that crossing our chest cavity to be relaxed and moving well helps our blood to have less disruption. We also need to ensure that muscles aren’t gripping the vessels just like we don’t want them to grip nerves. Amy includes both CDT and important Osteopathic Manual Therapy and sensory components to work thoroughly with circulation of the body.