Jodi Cohen: Hello and welcome to Essential Alchemy. Alchemy is defined as the power or process that changes or transforms something in a mysterious or impressive way. My hope is that the information in this podcast can help you transform your mood, your energy, physical health, or even some dots to help you shift your mental or emotional state. I’m your host, Jodi Cohen, a bestselling author, award-winning journalist, functional practitioner, lifelong learner, and founder of Vibrant Blue Oils, a company that sells proprietary blends of high-quality, organic, or wildcrafted essential oil remedies designed to help you return to your ideal mental, physical, and emotional state. You can find out more about me and my company at vibrantblueoils.com. And with that, let’s get started with today’s episode.
Hello and welcome to Essential Alchemy. I am your host Jody Cohen, and I’m super excited to be joined today by my friend Dr. Melissa Gallagher. She is a naturopathic physician who works with individuals addressing digestive disorders, hormone balance, detoxification therapies, and primary and secondary lymphedema cases through lymphatic decongested treatments, which I’m very excited to dig into. Welcome, Melissa.
Melissa Gallagher: Thank you. I’m so excited to be here and talk with you today.
Jodi Cohen: So I’m fascinated if you could share a little bit about your story because I think the work you’re doing is so foundational. How did you get into the lymph and that area of naturopathic health?
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, so really my lymphatic focus came in my clinicals. So just like an MD. MD schools are four years, and then we have a degree of clinical expertise. And so I was associated with a clinic that was connected to a hospital, so there was a facility setting with patients, and also it had an integrative healing medical community. And there was also research. So this was back up in Boston, and it was really exciting because there was a lot of clinical research happening with cancer patients. And lymphatic work primarily is a broader therapeutic for a lot of post-cancer patients, especially women with breast cancer because the removal of lymph nodes will yield a secondary condition called secondary lymphedema. And that was really my first introduction to the lymphatic system or even the modality of lymphatic therapy. So that really kind of kicked off my awareness as a practitioner.
Melissa Gallagher: But then as a naturopath, my kind of core focus has always been what we’re putting in our body and what we’re detoxing out. And so if we look at the lymphatic system, for me it was a big aha moment because this system, this body system is a very large complex integrated system where every organ gland and every really important body element has lymph nodes, lymph vessels, and lymph capillaries. It’s very synonymous with our vascular channels. So if we look at the inner workings of our body, we will have arteries and veins and alongside that are going to be lymphatic vessels and capillaries, and then each body organ and even certain organs will have multiple lymph nodes that are connected in that whole detox and immune process. So for me, it was just kind of one of these things where I remember looking at getting out into the clinical world and saying, okay, well what can I do to really help support people?
And at that time, I was looking at heading back to Florida to open up a wellness center. And so doing market analysis and kind of assessing what would make the most sense as a provider and how could I bring lymphatic work into my practice. That’s when I really got into the credentialing and the training and the certification to be more than just a lymphatic expert. I literally work with lymphatic patients and lymphedema patients. I do diagnostics and management of extreme limb fluid retention, and I do a lot of postoperative care. So that’s kind of how it kicked off. It kicked off in that clinical setting. And then what’s crazy is when I was doing my research, there’s only one lymphatic therapist, a specialized, credentialed individual who knows how to motivate the lymphatic system. There’s one of us to every 30,000 patients, and that’s not a lot.
And what I started to discover is that there were communities where there were no lymphatic experts, and no lymphatic therapists to help support them. So if you were in the middle of a smaller rural community and you had your medical facility or you were going into town, the likelihood of you having a therapist accessible in your area is very slim. And that really started my whole kind of entry into the digital space. So I actually started doing video content mostly for my own patients, but also recognizing and having communication with folks, but certain areas of our country and then outside in the broader world that were like, I have nobody to help me. I have 60 pounds of fluid weight and an arm, and I don’t know what to do. And so that’s kind of how my career in the lymphatic world has progressed, and I now partner with some of the leading lymphedema companies that provide garments and also medical devices to support those communities. So it’s been quite an amazing expansive journey and we’re helping thousands of people all over.
Jodi Cohen: It’s interesting because I’ve found that the people that work with the sickest of the sick, they’re covering cancer patients. You don’t need to let it get to that point. Often what you learn when you’re kind of on the battlefield saving lives can be reverse engineered and applied to people who think they’re healthy creatively. So can you talk about it, there are so many listeners who might be thinking, oh, that doesn’t apply to me, but it really does. Can you talk about what smaller symptoms might present if you have congested limbs?
Melissa Gallagher: Oh, sure. So the most common things we’re going to be inflammation, holding fluid weight, and it could be mild. A lot of times when we get sick and you lose several pounds, it’s not a metabolic kind of flushing of excess fat. It’s fluid. And so inflammation of any part of our body is going to be a sign of a sluggish lymphatic system, frequency of colds, illnesses like ear infections, sinus infections, and fluid around joints. And that will also be indicative of, some individuals might not even register that they have lymph node discomfort. So we have lymph nodes all over our body, and a lot of people just think they call ’em glands. So there’s this whole kind of misnomer in terms of how we articulate the lymphatic system. So a lot of times when your doctor is feeling around your neck, what they’re feeling for are swollen lymph nodes, and those lymph nodes get activated.
They harbor a lot of our immune cells that go into attack mode when we’re feeling ill, and so they’re going to be notating those, but we have those lymph nodes in and around our organ tissue. We have them underneath our armpit. We have them all the way down to our wrists, all the way down to our ankles. And even though we have in the last 15 years identified, we have a whole entire lymphatic process of our brain. So for instance, an individual that has brain fog and an inability to think clearly or has neuro imbalances, neuroendocrine imbalances, depression, anxiety, and even low melatonin levels, extreme histamine responses, are all going to be a sign of sluggish lymphatic system. That’s the brain lymphatic process. And then also individuals who feel fatigued. Fatigue is a really big one. Allergy season is a big indicator when folks just cannot kick allergies and they just have this chronic sinusitis or just this general malaise. Those are going to be signs of a sluggish lymphatic system. And if you are…
Jodi Cohen: Down on that, for people that are wondering, how does lymph relate to allergies? Just go a little deeper.
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, absolutely. So we have the structure of the lymphatic system. We have a very intricate, it’s kind of like a spider webbing, if you will, of vessels and capillaries and tubes that move fluid and the fluid, lymphatic fluid, we call it lymph fluid that is primarily comprised of protein and dead red blood cells, dead white cells. We’re going to remove toxins, assorted chemicals and pesticides, herbicides.
Melissa Gallagher: We’re going to be removing mycotoxins, even cancer cells, we naturally have this evacuation process through the lymphatics. So when we’re talking about the sinus passages, individuals that maybe have tinnitus, they’ve got puffiness under their eyes when they wake up, can conjunctivitis or any type of sinus kind of pressure or puffiness of the sinuses. There’s a very intricate lymphatic process that is up in the cheek area. It goes all the way up into the forehead, the temples, and then around the ears, and then the back of the neck.
And there’s a specific drainage process. So the interesting part of the lymphatic system, the heart is the level plane for the lymphatics. So everything below the heart moves upward, and then everything above the heart moves downward. And so there is a specific duct that drains primarily here on the left side, but many people, about 80% of individuals have another interwoven kind of duct work that’s in this midsection, right where the rib cage splits, there’s going to be a clustering of about eight or nine lymph nodes that sometimes functions as a secondary drain. So, individuals that have, for instance, a lot of my women, I have a whole breast course that I educate women and demonstrate lymphatic massage for the breast tissue and really dig into
Jodi Cohen: Breast preventative thing you can do prevent breast cancer.
Melissa Gallagher: It’s one of them. And everything is collective. So the lymphatics, if you are looking at improving your immune state, you need to promote your lymphatics. If you’re looking at detoxing your body, helping cell rejuvenation, and eliminating toxic waste and cellular stagnation, you need to move your lymphatics. So every kind of area of health focus from anti aging and biohacking to intense inflammation and diagnoses of autoimmune disorders, digestive imbalances, hormonal imbalances in even terminal cases or situations or diagnoses of cancer, everybody in, as long as you’re living, you need to be promoting your lymphatic system. And that is a pivotal point to wellness.
Jodi Cohen: And just to close the loop on the allergy symptoms, is it that the downstream hydraulics and lymph aren’t draining? And so the pollens J is more in the face than, oh…
Melissa Gallagher: No, no. So the allergen source causes inflammation and then the inflammation causes swelling. So there’s this immune response where we have this kind of swelling and we often register it as a histamine response. So histamine is the natural beginning phase of the healing process, but many people get stuck in that phase or because of other things like a sedentary lifestyle, poor diet choices, and even reactivity to histamines or mast cells, they will have a greater histamine reaction.
Melissa Gallagher: So the lymphatics get overloaded and overburdened by the inflammation by the pollen or whatever toxin or allergen the immune system is fighting. And then because of the intricacies of the face that your nose and throat region, there’s not a lot of space. So when we have swelling of the sinus passages, it will also constrict the lymphatic flow. So we will see the lymphatic system become more stagnant.
We’ll see those lymph nodes that people call ’em glands, they’re not glands, they are nodes. And I actually have what a node looks like. So folks are watching the video. This is what a little lymph node looks like. And so these little lymph nodes harbor our immune cells, and they can get large, they can get inflamed, they can get hard, and that’s a sign that the lymphatic system is really maxed. And it’s also an indicator that the immune system needs to be supported generally through herbals and other modalities. But lymphatically, what happens is the intensity of mucus and the histamine reaction creates this inflammation. Inflammation is fluid oriented. Now we’re dealing with a scenario where if you’ve ever had a sink or a tub that’s not draining properly, if there’s too much water and the drain isn’t open, then we get this slow kind of draining process.
And then with an allergen, like a pollen or any type of ragweed or grass allergies, that’s opening up the spigot. So there’s more water coming in than what’s able to be drained out. And so we have this imbalance and there’s this intricate homeostasis that needs to occur within the lymphatic system. And we see things can tip those scales. In most cases, secondary lymphedema is a surgical scenario where we remove, we amputate a lymph node or multiple lymph nodes, we damage the process through surgeries. Things like liposuction, facelifts, and rhinoplasties, those can have a negative long-term effect on the lymphatic system. And then even the mechanics, if somebody has a deviated septum, well that’s going to affect the lymphatic flow, and so we’ll see more lymphatic grief in that upper forehead, that upper sinus cavity. We’ll see fluid retention in and around the eyes. So it becomes really important that we promote the lymphatics daily. There are certain ways to do that. One of my favorite recommendations is dry skin body brushing, and then also using contrast therapy that’s moving, switching from hot and cold, that’ll activate the lymphatics to move properly. And then in the face region, we can do some very gentle massaging techniques. I have video content that demonstrates a lot of different ways to promote that flow naturally.
Jodi Cohen: I do want to dive into the takeaways at the end. This is fabulous, just Botox mess up lymph too.
Melissa Gallagher: In some ways, it can slow it down. But then the other thing that it has, it’s kind of interesting because there’s two sides to it. Botox is a relaxer, a muscle relaxer, so it relaxes the muscle. So if somebody, the intensity, if somebody has the elevens or the furrow lines, there’s a possibility that muscle kind of tension could restrict some lymph flow. So it’s not uncommon where we’ll see some, and this, again, I don’t have any clinical studies on this, but I have seen it in my own practice where I have, especially in Florida where I started my practice and practice over a decade, a lot of patients are doing a lot of anti-aging and rejuvenative medicine, and Botox is a big one, and a lot of those patients had less lymphatic congestion in those upper regions.
Jodi Cohen: Oh, interesting. So plus and curse, that’s probably why it helps with migraines too. Melissa Gallagher: It does. It does.
Jodi Cohen: That’s so interesting. So I want to talk about, we kind of talked about the sinuses. I’d love to get into it before we share solutions, kind of the neck, the vagus nerve, the fascia, the other things that can be impeding, lymph flow, or…
Melissa Gallagher: Congest. Yeah, absolutely. So a big one is, and the Botox conversation is definitely a good segue into this because fascia is kind of the girdle, the muscle girdle, and it kind of holds, it’s like a netting that holds our muscle. And when we’re under stress or have anxiety or have tendencies, a lot of people kind of carry their stress in their neck and shoulders. So a lot of times you notice your shoulders are up near your neck and you’ve got that tightness at the end of the day, you’re like, wow, my shoulders and I need an upper back massage. That’ll be an indicator, of muscle tension. There’s also another aspect to the tension and it’s the fascia. So there’s this layer that the fascia can constrict not just the muscle tone, but also some of the lymphatic flow and the vagus nerve. We actually have the vagus nerve runs on both sides of the neck, but primarily the left side is where we see the greater activation point.
And there are a lot of conditions where there will be a vagal nerve disconnect. So the vagus nerve is the largest nerve in our parasympathetic nervous system, so it’s part of our central nervous system, and it connects our brain to all of our organs. So basically runs from our brain, runs down the spinal column, and connects up to our heart, so elevations and heart rate, high blood pressure can be vagal, nerve-related, connect to the stomach if we’re dealing with stomach issues, digestive issues, and then that disconnect. We also see, so the fascia, when we’re looking at the fascia, fascia can be the girdle that kind of strains things, and even the vagus nerve can get stuck and wrapped up around some of our organs, particularly the heart is a big one that we see that disconnect with the vagus nerve in the heart specifically, but the lymphatics is a big part of that whole process.
Melissa Gallagher: So when we look at the kind of anatomy of the body, we have a vagal nerve that connects all of our organs. Those are our firing the electrical impulses and the communication from the brain to the organs. And then the lymphatic system is cleaning up cellular debris, just the functionality of our body and our multiple systems and our organs. There’s going to be always a degree of trash cleanup, and so that’s part of that process. But if we have tension in our neck or even scar tissue, we have a lot of folks that have gallbladder surgery or they have laparoscopic surgeries of the abdomen, those can all…
Jodi Cohen: Create.
Melissa Gallagher: Yes. Oh, c-section is a huge one, and those can create fascial imbalances and in turn disrupt the lymphatic system. So cutting through the muscle and the tissue we’re affecting the fascia, we’re affecting the lymphatics, we’re also affecting that healing process. Some people have what I consider an autoimmune dysfunction where they scar too quickly, so they’ll keloid that becomes this adhe. We develop adhesions. Those are certain kinds of protein dense scarring that continues on even years after surgery, and that affects our fascia, the girdle. It can get stuck in this kind of place and it needs to kind of stretch out and relax, and that in turn has an effect on the vagus nerve.
Jodi Cohen: Yeah, it’s so interesting how it’s all interwoven and connected. And so if we’re kind of stuck in that guarded pattern from trauma and we’re trying to obviously promote vagus nerve signaling, promote lymph flow, relax fascia, how do you help people unravel that?
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, so this is where everybody’s body is unique as an individual. So what works for one person might not work for another one for a multitude of reasons, but generally, the foundational elements of healing are going to be incorporating very deep diaphragmatic breathing. So that starts to level down the central nervous system causing this calming state where the body stops this whole fight or flight process. And that at the end of the day is a huge part of immune imbalances, lymphatic congestion, stressed body, and also hormonal imbalances and can cause the vagus nerve to be completely overstimulated. And so breathing is the beginning of the process. Diaphragmatic breathing is also integral to moving the lymphatic system that can in many cases help open up some of the valves. We need to help the flow move, and while we’re in that kind of meditative deep diaphragmatic breathing, we can then deploy visualization exercises to also calm the body.
And then deploying activities like dry skin, and body brushing. I use a lot of homeopathic for both vagal nerve recalibration and also lymphatic flow and support of the lymphatic system.
Melissa Gallagher: And then in some cases with patients, because especially if we’re working with trauma PTSD or any type of major stress, and the reality is we’re in 2022, all of us have gone through a pandemic, and it doesn’t matter if we’ve gotten sick or not, we’ve had life changes and adjustments. And that alone is a very traumatic stress-inducing scenario. And what we see is that there is a net effect of stress and trauma on the body, and that impact specifically is going to be seen within our endocrine system. And so we’re going to see our stress response mechanism heightened, and for many of us, we entered that pandemic already in a heightened stage, and so now it’s just more elevated.
So it becomes really important that we look at supporting the adrenal glands, starting to recalibrate that communication from the brain, our neurotransmitter pathways to really start to calm down the body and that calming process, we can eat foods that are more calming and lowering of inflammation. So calming the inflammatory state of the body is a really big part of it. You can have all of the best practices of yoga and meditation and breathing, but if our diet isn’t there or we’re eating foods that cause inflammation, there’s no way around that whole process of the inflammatory response because that then triggers the stress response mechanism. There are a lot of things that we really dig into to help balance and support the body because they’re all interconnected. So for instance, if somebody is in a stress state or recovering from a stressful environment, the cortisol, the influence of the stress hormone, which is part of this whole fight or flight process, cortisol is inflammatory, producing chronic cortisol. So that elevates inflammation, it imbalances our insulin level and it can cause lymphatic congestion. So those are things that we need to get back to the root of some of the core reasons why we’re having poor lymphatic flow, kind of the tense imbalance, nervous system, and really look at calming the state of our body.
Jodi Cohen: No, I love that It’s healing from the inside out and the outside in. Now, I know you’ve mentioned before with dry brushing, there is a technique to it. It’s kind of like a friend of mine who lives in Minnesota. As you always shovel the end of the driveway first, can you just show people how you start with dry brushing?
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, yeah. So the most important way is to go to the source. So the main drain is right above the left of the heart. So the left right above the left chest is what we start kind of opening that up. Then we go to open up the axillary nodes. So there’s a whole clustering of lymph nodes under our armpit, and we do some gentle brushing on both sides, depending on what’s going on with the person’s body is then where I take the direction. So if you find a lot of women, we wake up in the morning and we’re puffy and stuffy. So the best kind of thing there is to then start promoting the neck. And there are, we call these little areas right in between the clavicle and the neckline.
Melissa Gallagher: We call them watersheds. And so they’re main drain points for the lymphatics, and we can motivate that either with two fingers and gently kind of pressing, and it’s something where it’s not going to be painful, but you’re just going to be pressing in and then kind of pressing in and sweeping out. And so that you can do that 20 times. And then with a dry skinned body brush, you do sevens. So you go from under the chin to the neck and down. So you do a bigger seven, so under the chin.
Jodi Cohen: Six times. Okay.
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah. So it’s the direction of a seven. So both sides, but you start to sweep out and then you can start to do a smaller seven. So you do a big seven first, and then you do a medium seven, a smaller seven, and a little mini seven. So that covers the whole entire lymphatics here on the slide. Now I do a lot of what we call alternate drain processing for folks where let’s say a woman has had a lumpectomy or has some sort of surgical impairment where we know the lymphatics are not connected and not flowing right. Then there are ways what we call alternate drain processes. And so sometimes we can use the back of the neck, we can use the back of the leg, the back of the torso to then move the fluid. So that becomes really important for folks.
Jodi Cohen: Around. That’s very inspiring. This is great. So do you have a protocol where you have a specific dry brush, you recommend you do the sevens? How many times would you do that on each side of the neck?
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, so generally we do anywhere from 13 to 20 sweeps. It depends on how much time, like an ideal full body dry skin brushing routine is seven to 10 minutes. Now many people don’t have that amount of time in the morning, and so they’ll just do a quick little over kind of haul. Or in some cases where some of my patients, I might just have them do the mid-torso. So if they’ve got a lot of legs and lower extremities, that’s what we call the lower body, lower torso, the genitalia, and then the legs and the feet, they have swelling in that region or a good indicator of poor lymph flow and the legs is cellulite. So if that’s indicative, that’s a good point to do some dry skin body brushing of the abdomen. And in that case, you do circles around the belly button the kind of center you do circles and you move from the left hip to the right hip and over.
Jodi Cohen: So clockwise.
Melissa Gallagher: Clockwise. Yep.
Jodi Cohen: Wonderful.
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, I created a dry skin body brushing guide. So a lot of my patients walk out of my clinic with that. And then there are some follow-up kind of activities that they can perform depending on the area of specificity and even the kind of unique alternate routes of lymphatic drainage necessary.
Jodi Cohen: And I’m curious, you mentioned herbals, I’m assuming you mean ingesting. Are there some that you like?
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, so some herbals that are really powerful at promoting lymphatics are going to be very basic food-oriented herbals. So ginger and turmeric are fantastic, and one of my professional roles, I’m a lymphatic educator, so I educate doctors, nurses, PTs, OTs lymphatic therapists, and other folks in the medical community who are learning or catering to lymphatic patients or have credentialing as lymphatic lymphedema patient care providers. I have to have a lot of scientific backing because many of them work in the clinical setting. So if they’re going to recommend certain dietary elements or changes, we have to have scientific proof, we have to have the data and the research. So there’s actually a substantial amount of clinical research on ginger and turmeric as both inflammatory reducing and then also lymphatic promoting. So those are really two of my favorites. Many of my patients are lymphedema patients.
I have them drinking three to four cups of ginger tea a day. And so that is, it’s amazing. I have to warn patients because it’s so powerful that they will be flushing, meaning the kidneys and the bladder will be activated. They will flush a lot of fluid. And when I work with a patient in person, they will lose anywhere from five to 10 pounds in an hour-long treatment with my process. So within 24 hours, of that flushing process, we get so much lymphatic fluid motivated and exiting the body that we notice a difference on the scale.
Jodi Cohen: That’s really interesting because two practitioners that I’m friends with that had COVID said ginger tea is what saved them. It was supporting the limbs. So supporting the immune system.
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, ginger is fantastic and ginger now it’s an intense oil. And so some patients we will, depending on their sensitivity, we will dilute. So with a carrier oil, we’ll add a drop or two of ginger oil and apply that to a reflexology point. So there’s a point. So if this is my foot, the big toe, and your next toe, there’s this little point right here.
Melissa Gallagher: This is your main reflexology lymph point. And for a lot of people, one of the things when I’m kind of doing my full body assessment with patients, I want to palpate this area and I want to see if is it squishy. Is it mushy? Does it feel like underneath the skin, it feels like a sponge that’s full of fluid? And so if it’s kind of squishy and sometimes even tender, I’ve had some people go, oh my gosh, that really is a tender spot. That’s a full-body lymph point. So reflexology-wise, this is where we want to put the oil. So the ginger is a carrier oil, but then also with your oil, I would recommend that the lymph oil specifically, a drop or two of that in that spot has the most motivative process for the lymphatic flow.
Jodi Cohen: That’s fascinating. I obviously play with coils every second of every day. I like this clavicle spot that you were recommending too. Yes.
Melissa Gallagher: Watersheds. Oh, it’s so fantastic.
Jodi Cohen: Yeah. I’m curious, have you played with other oils? I love the idea of cleaning the limb from the inside out, obviously what you eat and drink, and then from the outside in, by dry brushing, with cast oil, which I’ve heard is good for the limb as it gets under the skin. Obviously, we’re going to recommend people more. What are your easiest quick-hit recommendations for people?
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, so ginger tea, dry skin, body brushing cast to oil pack is extremely powerful. Part of it’s the molecular density of that seed oil. It can get through the dermal layers and actually can really invigorate the lymphatics and the detox process of an organ or gland. It’s highly effective on fibroids and benign cysts and masses. So those are a few. Then for really powerful internal lymphatic motivation, there’s a lymphatic homeopathic that is, it’s not pharmaceutical grade because homeopathics aren’t pharmaceutical, but it is professional level grades. So they only sell it to folks that have licensure to sell the homeopathic. But that is what I recommend, and we sell online. It’s a combination of 14 or 15 different homeopathies that all function to reduce inflammation and open up and motivate lymphatic flow. So that is definitely one thing. Link to your store. Oh, sure. Yeah.
So if folks go to my website, there’s a link shop, and then there’s a link for my clinic store. So folks can go in that way. We also have, I have a ton of lymphatic-related articles on my blog maybe. What’s the name of the remedy that you were just talking about? So it’s called Lymphatic Stem Stimulator, so that’s the name of it. And so that’s a big one. And then another one that actually is significant amount of research is doing rebounding.
Melissa Gallagher: So in one of my educational classes, I do a lot of patience, and so one of the things that they found is when we were really working with NASA and at the height of the space travel and really prepping a lot of astronauts for time and space, one of the things that they identified is we’ve got to find ways to promote their lymphatics, but also to help enhance G-Force because without gravity, we have gravity makes lymphatic process flow, and that’s part of this whole, the heart pumping is motivating to the lymphatics, and when you take an astronaut in his face, everything changes.
So what they found is that NASA is the reason why we have rebounders, so they found that rebounding. It gives the body a GForce of four Gs. And when we are bouncing on a rebounder, what we’re doing is we’re seeing these lymph vessels open and it’s forcing fluid to flow up the legs and down the neck, and it’s pumping. So it serves as an external pumping mechanism. Jump roping doesn’t qualify. You have to be on a rebounder, you don’t have to bounce off. So I have 80-year-olds that they buy these ones that have little handles and then only have to have their feet bounce off. You just have to move up and down. And I have an alternate process where you can have a yoga ball chair. And so there’s still some of that activity, but it’s amazing what they found. They actually measure the lymphocyte activity and the motivation of the lymphatic system. We see thermal scans, so we can see lymphatic congestion before and after rebounding. Same with dry skin body brushing. So we have really good measuring tools to show and prove that it’s highly effective. But yeah, rebounding literally three to five minutes can get things moving as well. So could you do it on a BOSU ball too? I don’t think that the BOSU ball has that action. The spring
Jodi Cohen: Trampoline.
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, it’s really the trampoline. And what..
Jodi Cohen: About those vibration plates that I’ve seen?
Melissa Gallagher: Yes. So it is a different effectiveness. So it doesn’t have the GForce kind of valve pumping, but it does have a process and activity where we see some motivation. It’s reduced, but highly effective. So for instance, you can do a 10-minute trampoline exercise, and the equivalent of 10 minutes is like a 50-minute run or a 40-minute swim. So cardiovascularly big benefit and it’s short and sweet. So I love it. As a mom, I don’t have a whole lot of time, 10 minutes on travel listening to a podcast, and I’m motivating my lymphatics and pumping my heart and getting my sweat on and deep breathing, which is all very promotive. But yeah, there is a vibration plate. We’re now seeing in the anti-aging biohacking world, that a lot of the athletes now for recovery are using the same type of limb, body pumping type of pneumatic pumps where they put their legs in these long kind of leg pump type of things. Yeah.
Jodi Cohen: Like the flow per machine. Yes.
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s actually what we have prescribed for our lymphedema patients. And they’re not inexpensive machines, but they’re highly effective.
Jodi Cohen: They’re like 10,000. It’s like a full-body blood pressure cuff.
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, and it’s graduated. So it gives us the graduated compression, which is what is moving up the limb, particularly the leg. It’s been pretty amazing. I’ve been doing this now for 17 years, and up until the last three or four years, nobody really talks about the lymphatic system. It’s been more, even naturopaths, we kind of borderline, we’ll say, oh, do this. But really and truly, there are very few individuals that have the 1200 1600 hour credentialing that really do deep dives into lymphatic work. But we’re seeing a greater community coming around and gathering around lymphatic promotion as partly an immune state. So if you want to support your immune system, we need to support your lymphatics. But also now we’re recognizing it’s part of the anti-aging movement. So facial lymphatic massages are really big when using gemstones and other things that are going to motivate the lymphatics is amazing, and it’s exciting seeing this progression where more and more people are talking about this system.
Jodi Cohen: This is fabulous. Thank you for your brilliance. Can you share where people can find out more about you, how to work with you, and how to possibly get your dry brushing guide?
Melissa Gallagher: Sure. So the best place I would love to send people is because I have a lot of video tutorials and free video tutorials, I have a YouTube channel, so on YouTube, if you search natural health resources, that is going to bring up my YouTube channel. And I think now I have like 770 videos in catalogs. They all, have them in playlists, and there are about 55 videos in my specific lymphatic motivation playlist. So lymphatic therapy from the upper extremity, the face sinus congestion to folks that might be swelling in their ankles or feet, as well as dietary recommendations, and certain supplements that are highly impactful, YouTube is going to be a really great resource. And then my website, I have a lot of specific blog content, and then that’s where you can schedule, folks can schedule a virtual appointment with me or find additional resources like my monthly masterclasses and some of my courses are available.
Jodi Cohen: Thank you so much. This was so educational and so insightful. I really appreciate it.
Melissa Gallagher: Thank you. I’m excited. I’ve been recommending the lymph oil to a lot of my patients already, so I’m grateful that you’ve compiled a really great blend that’s helping promote lymphatics.
Jodi Cohen: Yeah, I love that. And how often would you recommend people apply it on the reflux point between the toes?
Melissa Gallagher: Yeah, so for just kind of trying to move the lymphatics once or twice a day, I always kind of have people do something in the morning as they’re getting ready for work or getting ready for their day, and then right before bed. So if the morning is when somebody wakes up, takes a shower, as soon as you get out of the shower, motivate that area with a little kind of same sweeping that we did in the watersheds, but just a little kind of gentle sweeping there. And then right before bed is always good. So that would be kind of every day. And then if we’re looking at more maintenance where we’ve got more of a condition where a lot of women have vascular insufficiency, that’s a leading cause of lymphatic impairment where the vascular channel becomes dysfunctional. So that would be a scenario where maybe two or three times, sometimes up to four times a day if we’re seeing a progression of fluid retention progressing through the day. And that’s very common. They’ll wake up, their legs look fine, they can get into their shoes, and by noon they’re like, my shoes are really tight. It’s leaving a mark on my feet. And that would be a good time to kind of pepper that in and maybe right before they go home or right when they get home after work. And then right before bed.
Jodi Cohen: And both feet.
Melissa Gallagher: Yes, both areas. Yep. Left and right side.
Jodi Cohen: Thank you again. This was…
Melissa Gallagher: Oh my gosh, thank you. I’m so excited to chat with you. Jodi Cohen: Yeah, always fun.
Melissa Gallagher: Aw, thank you.
Jodi Cohen: Thank you so much for listening. I hope this podcast empowered you with some useful information and takeaways. If you liked this episode, please consider sharing a positive review or subscribing. I would also love to offer you my free parasympathetic toolkit as a gift just for listening. It will teach you how to activate the most important nerve in your body to turn on your ability to heal. This free toolkit includes a checklist, a video, and a detailed guide. If this podcast prompted any questions, you can always find answers at my blog at vibrantblueoils.com or my book Essential Oils to Boost the Brain and Heal the Body. Until next time, wishing you Vibrant Health.
