Introduction To Lymph

In The Beginning There Was LYMPH!!!!

I know how this must sound.  But I want to make a point about how basic and important lymph fluid is to our bodies, our health, and our lives!

We emerged from the ocean sea as did all life.  In fact we are conceived and grow in our very own ocean for the first 9 months of our lives.

At birth our body is 90% water.  By adulthood this drops to 70% and as we age this drops to 50%.  The idea of a “fountain of youth” takes on a whole new perspective in this light.

We can survive only 1/7th. as long without water as we can without food.  We are meant to be fluid creatures.

Water is basic to all life, whether human, animal or plant.  So why am I not focusing on water?  We certainly will but right now I want to show the connection lymph fluid has to water and to our survival and state of health.   And that connection is:   lymph fluid is produced from the water we take in.   So yes the amount and quality of water we drink directly affects the quality and production of lymph fluid, which has a direct effect on the state of our health.

Water = Lymph = Fluidity & Life.

What if lymph fluid is the key to our own personal “fountain of youth”?  What if we just need to learn how to keep the fountain flowing and clean?

As anyone who has a fountain in their garden will tell you, keeping the fountain filled with water is the easy part.  Keeping the fountain flowing and the water in it clean is the real task.  Drinking plenty of clean fresh water is vital but it is just the first step!

How does lymph fluid fit in here and why is it so important?  Let us see!

There is twice the fluid volume of lymph as there is blood in our bodies.

The lymphatic system goes to nearly every cell in the body.  Even cells the blood does not!

These are very important pieces of information as to why we need to know more about this system.  The importance of blood has been studied and is well understand even on its most basic level to nearly everyone.  Ask a child about blood and they will know something.  Ask an adult about lymph and usually you will get a blank look.  At most they might think lymph/cancer!  Even most practitioners know very little about the lymphatic system these days.

Our knowledge and understanding of the lymphatic system is changing and growing at a very fast rate.  Much of what I was taught when I first began to study the lymphatic system in the early 70’s has changed radically.  This is because of the research and study that is being done in what is turning out to be the most important physiological system in our bodies.  As such the information we have today will also change as we delve deeper and deeper into our physiology.

This is true of so many areas of our physiological body.  Advances in how we can care for ourselves and how we prevent and treat dis-eases is growing expeditiously.

As more and more dis-eases are being found to have their root causes in the lymph and lymphatic system, more and more attention is being given to research and study.  What is interesting though is that lymphatic massage has decreased as being part of many peoples treatments here in the United States.  In Europe it is still a basic and important modality in health treatments and prevention care.

I use the word “dis-ease” for it’s broad scope.  For even our emotional state, our inner mental climate is affected by the lymphatic system.  It is now widely accepted that the lymphatic system is responsible for keeping cancer cells from taking over, for fighting infections in the body,  as well as viruses, bacteria, and fungi.  As more and more research is being done we are realizing how the lymphatic system affects our emotional state also.

I have used this analogy for many years now.  This is something you can do at home and see for yourself.  Take a glass of water and let it sit on the counter.  Now watch as the water changes from being crystal clear at first to cloudy in very little time at all.

We all know that stagnant water is a breeding ground for diseases of all types.  We see what happens when a beaver builds a dam and up river changes to more swamp like conditions.  On my land I have to change and clean the water buckets that we have out for the wild animals daily during the dry season to keep the water fresh.  Even at the river I swim at every summer we see a change over the course of the summer as the water flow slows down, algae begins to grow and the water itself feels changed.

The same holds true for lymph fluid.  If areas of the body become stagnant due to an injury, stress, or from being sedentary the state of the health of the lymph fluid changes just as the water changes in the glass over time.  As this happens the ability of the lymphatic system to function becomes impaired.  And that affects our health greatly!

Functions Of The Lymphatic System:

We know the lymphatic system is responsible for:

• draining interstitial fluid (the solution that bathes & surrounds cells) from body tissues and returning it to the blood supply
• transporting dietary lipids (such as omega-3) from the intestines to the blood supply
• the primary defense system against infections, viruses, bacteria, fungi and cancer cells

We also know that the lymphatic system is closely tied to digestion and the nourishing of cells throughout the body as well as removing toxic and unwanted substances from the cells and helping to transport them out of the body.

Our lymph nodes are collection points all over the body that help filter the lymph and kill off “bad” cells.  There are more nodes in your gastrointestinal area than there are in the rest of the body.  This too is very important information to keep in mind as we look at ways to maintain health.

What we are doing here is getting an over view of the lymphatic system.  A very basic introduction if you will for to really probe deeply is going to time and to be honest a lot more pages.  We are going to do this step by step.  From this point I will break down the lymphatic system into more manageable sections.  What is important here is for us to gain knowledge.  For knowledge is power and what it is that we are striving to have power over but our own health, and in turn our own lives and the quality of that life.

This site is like putting together a jig saw puzzle.  Every piece is important and until you have a sense of the whole the individual pieces are just that.  Yet the body functions as a whole and not as separate pieces and this is what makes this journey so exciting.  We know what the finished puzzle looks like but how did we put it together or should we say how did nature put us together?  Can you imagine anything worth doing more than getting to know your own body and falling in love with it?

No matter how far we have come we are still just at the beginning…

Thanks for visiting….not to worry a lot more to come…

Together Our Hands Are Joined To Heal One Another