Manual Lymphatic Drainage

Manual Lymphatic Drainage (MLD) is awesome! It's something that can be added to your regular massage routine or as it's own 60 or 90 min session. MLD is working the lymph system and not working deeply into the muscular system. Your lymph system has a lot of responsibilities. It removes interstitial fluid from tissue, absorbs and transports fatty acids from the digestive system, transports white blood cells to and from the lymph nodes into bones, and transports antigen-presenting cells to the lymph nodes where an immune response is stimulated. This is a very abbreviated explanation; it collects debris and extra fluid and sends it out of the body.

Contraindications is a very important part of knowing what type of massage to book. Contraindications include recent injections (including vaccines), acute congestive heart failure, acute renal failure, active blood clots, active infection, active bleeding, or undiagnosed cancer. Sessions should also not be scheduled while a client is having her menstruation cycle; it can increase flow.

Benefits of MLD include reducing spasms and pain, detoxification of medications and anesthesia, increases mobility, increases fluid circulation, boosts immune system and helps prevent post surgical infections, minimizes effects of scar tissue by helping to prevent adhesions, keloids, and fibrotic tissue, improves skin regeneration and healing wounds, decreases pre and post surgical swelling. When MLD is used before surgery the benefits include preparing clean, drained tissue for surgery, reduces any current fluid retention or swelling, detoxes the tissue, stimulates the immune system and helps to decrease risk of infection, reducing recovery time from anesthesia with less side effects, and creates a prepped homeostasis environment resulting in a shorter recovery time.

Contraindications for MLD. If you have any of the following, please consult your physician before scheduling your MLD session.

• Infection and/or fever
• Deep vein thrombosis (DVT)
• Hypotension
• Major organ failure
• Acute inflammation
• Cardiac decomposition such as cardiac heart failure (CHF)
• Diabetes
• Arrhythmia