Would it benefit PwME to have our lymph moving more?

[Sasha]

This is going to be an incoherent and pig-ignorant question but my (possible completely wrong) understanding is that lymph doesn't move around the body unless we're moving and our muscles are pumping it.

According to Google AI, 'Lymph's main functions are to drain excess fluid from tissues, transport fats and vitamins from the gut, and act as a crucial part of the immune system by filtering out germs, toxins, and abnormal cells, returning clean fluid and immune cells back to the bloodstream to fight infection. It acts as the body's sanitation and defense network, collecting waste and delivering pathogens to lymph nodes for destruction by white blood cells (lymphocytes).'

I'm wondering if lack of lymph movement during sleep while we're immobile might have something to do with why sleep is unrefreshing for PwME (and indeed why many of us wake up feeling a ton worse than when we went to bed). And if moving more in the daytime would help us generally because it would help lymph to do its cleansing/immune jobs.

Obviously, most of us are already moving as much as we can manage, and moving more would make us worse - but assisted movement would surely be possible. For example, people who have had knee replacement surgery have their legs resting on supports that move their legs passively, to avoid blood clots, in the hours after the operation.

No idea whether I'm just spouting nonsense.

 

[BrokenBeaktheBrave]

I've had a similar thought about lymph and movement too. I wonder if some of us could tolerate a vibration plate.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

Google AI has no idea. Understanding the role of fluid flux in the body is one of the most subtle and confusing things in physiology.

I cannot see lymph flux being a problem. If it was your arms and legs would swell up.

 

[Eleanor]

IIRC this is the theoretical basis of the Perrin Technique? (which only seems to work in trials conducted by R. Perrin)

 

[Binkie4]

I have a machine which moves lymph around the body. It's called a lymphapress and consists of the machine part which is small enough to be placed on a side table ( but very heavy) from which extend, via a plug, two long leads which are fixed to a body bag ( edit: with separated legs) into which you manoevre yourself and zip yourself in, up to the arms in my case. When you switch the machine on, air moves into the body bag and inflates it via a number of sequential chambers which inflate at the designated pressure so that lymph is moved around.

They are manufactured for people with lymphadema ( and some with lipoedema use them) to move excess lymph out from around fat in the body.

It does not benefit my ME in any way, in fact if I am depleted, it can take me nearer to a crash. I can also feel nauseous after use ( a cycle takes 40-45 minutes) if I am running low on energy just as a lymphatic massage ( MLD - manual lymphatic drainage) can do this. A lymphatic massage should be very light, feather light.

 

[Sly Saint]

brings this to mind.........
"In one scene, Dr. Frankenstein looks upon a human lymphatic system, impressively dissected out of a body and splayed on a wooden board the size of a dinner table."
(how he brings the creature to life in the latest film .)

 

[InitialConditions]

IIRC this is the theoretical basis of the Perrin Technique? (which only seems to work in trials conducted by R. Perrin)

Essentially, yes: his theory is that SNS activation and 'stress' leads to dysfunctional smooth muscle contractions that 'pump' lymph around the body in lymphatic vessels, which then leads to a build up of 'toxins'.

The question then becomes: why wouldn't this cause a build up of fluid in tissue, as you see in lymphedema. But perhaps there's not leakage as such, just stagnant flow.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

But perhaps there's not leakage as such, just stagnant flow.

The leakage goes on all the time in your legs so it is the stagnation that produces the oedema with immobility or lymph heart paralysis (by drugs like indomethacin).

The whole thing is make-believe.

 

[wabi-sabi]

The question then becomes: why wouldn't this cause a build up of fluid in tissue, as you see in lymphedema.

I have allergies that make my eyelids swell up and produce huge bags under the eyes. Giving myself a lymphatic facial massage makes them de-puff ever so slightly But they fill right back up again since I'm allergic to everything, sometimes it seems like even my own skin secretions. It doesn't affect my ME/CFS at all, but it does feel nice and is relaxing. I tried a Perrin massage on my head. It felt nice and that was about it.
I had a scary incident where massaging my arms and legs with the wrong moisturizer for a few days in a row seemed to make a systemic MCAS reaction with increased heartrate, shortness of breath, puffiness and itching. So I'm in the too much massage is a bad thing camp.