Michelle Licha-Oros Scar + Lymph Wellness

Lymphangiogenesis (the growth and formation of new lymphatic vessels) + adhesions. Thanks Lymphatic Restoration Therapy!
My practice is focused on this theme: "Dense fibrosis and adhesions can change that environment, making it more difficult for tissues to move freely and potentially creating a less favorable setting for lymphatic regeneration.
Likewise, when lymphatic transport remains impaired, inflammatory mediators can persist in the tissues longer, contributing to ongoing extracellular matrix remodeling and further fibrosis.
Rather than a simple cause-and-effect relationship, these processes can influence one another throughout healing."

🌱 Lymphangiogenesis & Adhesions: A Race During Healing

When we think about healing after surgery or an injury, we often focus on the scar.

But beneath the surface, two very different processes are happening at the same time.

One is trying to restore the tissue.

The other may restrict it.

🌿 Lymphangiogenesis: Building New Pathways

Lymphangiogenesis is the formation of new lymphatic vessels.

After surgery or injury, your body begins rebuilding damaged lymphatic pathways to help remove excess fluid, proteins, inflammatory mediators, and cellular waste. This process is essential for restoring healthy tissue function.

🕸️ Adhesions: The Body's Protective Repair

At the same time, fibroblasts begin producing collagen to stabilize the injured area.

When healing is well regulated, collagen is gradually remodeled into functional tissue.

However, if inflammation persists or healing becomes dysregulated, excess collagen may form adhesions—bands of fibrous tissue that connect structures that should normally glide independently.

⚖️ A Delicate Balance

Here's where it gets interesting...

New lymphatic vessels need a healthy environment in which to grow.

They rely on:
✔ A well-organized extracellular matrix
✔ Healthy mechanical movement
✔ Appropriate growth signals
✔ Controlled inflammation

Dense fibrosis and adhesions can change that environment, making it more difficult for tissues to move freely and potentially creating a less favorable setting for lymphatic regeneration.

Likewise, when lymphatic transport remains impaired, inflammatory mediators can persist in the tissues longer, contributing to ongoing extracellular matrix remodeling and further fibrosis.

Rather than a simple cause-and-effect relationship, these processes can influence one another throughout healing.

🌱 Why Early Care Matters

This is one reason early, appropriate rehabilitation after surgery or injury can be so valuable.

Supporting healthy movement, controlling swelling when present, optimizing lymphatic function, and respecting the body's natural healing timeline may help create an environment that supports organized tissue remodeling.

Healing isn't simply about closing a wound.

It's about restoring an environment where tissues can move, communicate, and function together again.

This fascinating relationship between lymphangiogenesis, the extracellular matrix, fibrosis, and adhesions will be explored in much greater detail in my upcoming article:

🕸️ A Sticky Situation: Understanding Fibrosis, Adhesions, and the Lymphatic System

Understanding the biology of healing helps us appreciate that successful rehabilitation is often less about forcing tissues to change—and more about creating the conditions that allow the body to heal as effectively as possible.

There's one lymph node in the body that clinicians are trained to never ignore.

It sits low in the left side of the neck, tucked above the collarbone, at a spot most people would never think twice about. But when it's enlarged, it's telling you something about organs it never physically touches — the stomach, the pancreas, the ovaries, the colon.

It's called Virchow's node, named for the German pathologist who first connected it to gastric cancer in 1848. The French pathologist Charles-Émile Troisier later confirmed the same finding across other abdominal cancers — which is why an enlarged, hard, painless node in this exact spot is still called a positive Troisier's sign in clinics today.

Why does a node in the neck reveal disease happening down in the abdomen and pelvis?
Because of where it sits on the lymphatic map.

🌊 The pathway into it: Lymph collects from the lower body and abdominal organs into the cisterna chyli near L1–L2, ascends through the diaphragm's aortic hiatus as the thoracic duct, travels up behind the sternum through the thorax, and empties into the venous system at the left venous angle — the exact junction where the left internal jugular and left subclavian veins meet. Virchow's node sits right at that terminus, the last stop before lymph re-enters the bloodstream.

That means Virchow's node isn't just "a lymph node near the neck." It's the literal endpoint of the entire thoracic duct — the drainage route for most of the body below the diaphragm, and a large share of the body above it too. Cancer cells traveling through that same duct can lodge there before the lymph ever reaches the vein, which is exactly why it becomes palpable long before someone might otherwise suspect an abdominal malignancy.

🔍 What it reveals clinically: A firm, painless, fixed node in this location is treated as a sentinel sign of possible stage IV disease until proven otherwise — most classically gastric cancer, but also pancreatic, ovarian, testicular, colorectal, esophageal, and pulmonary primaries, plus lymphoma. An infected or inflamed node in the same spot tends to be tender and mobile instead — tenderness is one of the key differentiators clinicians use at the bedside.

This is exactly why, in my own assessment work, I pay close attention to supraclavicular fullness — not just as a sign of lymphatic congestion at the terminus (which is far more common and far less ominous), but because this is the same anatomical neighborhood where serious pathology first announces itself. Knowing the difference between benign terminus congestion and a true Troisier's sign is a core clinical skill, not just an academic detail.

This node is one more proof point for something I keep coming back to: the lymphatic system is not a scattered collection of vessels. It's one continuous, mapped pathway — and every point along it, from the diaphragm to the base of the neck, is telling you something if you know how to read it.

More on the full pathway — the diaphragms, the pressure gradients, and the terminus itself — in my latest article.

Stay tuned. Follow, like and share to continue learning with the LRT community.

"...congestion at the level of the neck and facial lymphatics may influence how easily brain waste can leave the skull. We do not have all the answers yet—but the plumbing is clearly connected."

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/187NxNAdaN/

💆‍♀️ Face Drainage → Neck Nodes → Brain “Detox”?

The Hidden Link Between Facial Lymphatics and Your Brain

We talk a lot about lymphatic drainage for the face, jaw, and neck—but almost no one talks about how this might connect to your brain’s own cleaning system, the glymphatic system.

Here’s the big idea:
The brain has a glymphatic system that washes out waste and inflammatory molecules using cerebrospinal fluid, especially during deep sleep.

That waste-filled fluid then drains into lymphatic vessels in the meninges (the coverings of the brain) and travels to deep cervical lymph nodes in your neck.

The face and scalp drain into superficial lymph nodes, which then feed into those same deeper cervical lymph nodes.

So your facial and neck lymphatics and your brain’s glymphatic system are all part of one continuous drainage “highway,” meeting in the lymph nodes of your neck.

🧠 From Brain to Neck (And Why It Matters)
Imaging studies have shown that fluid from the brain actually shows up in the cervical lymph nodes over time—real proof that the brain drains into the neck lymphatics.

Other work shows that meningeal lymphatic vessels are a key exit route for brain waste into those same deep cervical nodes.

At the same time, anatomy studies confirm that:
Superficial vessels of the face and scalp drain into a “ring” of lymph nodes at the junction of the head and neck.

From there, flow continues into deeper cervical lymph nodes along the internal jugular vein.

In other words, congestion at the level of the neck and facial lymphatics may influence how easily brain waste can leave the skull. We do not have all the answers yet—but the plumbing is clearly connected.

💡 Why this is such an exciting, overlooked connection
Research is rapidly evolving around glymphatic and cerebral lymphatic drainage in migraine, brain fog, and neurodegeneration.

At the same time, clinicians and therapists see real-world changes in headaches, pressure, and mental clarity when they support lymphatic flow in the face and neck. (The science is catching up here.)

Putting it together: facial and cervical lymphatic work may not just de-puff your face or relax your neck—it may also support a healthier environment for your brain’s own cleansing system by keeping the “exit ramps” in your neck more open.

This doesn’t replace medical care or migraine medications, but it reframes why gentle, consistent lymphatic support around the head and neck could matter for headaches, pressure, and brain fog.

A simple self drainage routine of the neck and face can assist with brain fog! Stay tuned for a self treatment video that you can use throughout the day to clear the path and help drain your brain!!

I talk about this is my article:
Your Neck Is Doing Way More Than You Think — Including Helping Your Brain Take Out the Trash

You can view the article here.
https://canva.link/umtjjm3iippc9ea

Interested in the pdf to print? You can order a PDF for a donation (your choice) to help support my work. Click here:

https://fee16f4a-720b-4b86-b327-a8a4c1b22ca9.paylinks.godaddy.com/53219cea-fa35-451f-9d23-e28

This looks like a great self care course. Taught by Jill Miller, founder of Tune Up Fitness and Leah Levitan, certified lymphedema therapist and creator of Lymph Love Club.

Recorded live online workshop via Zoom on Friday, April 17, 9:30am – 12pm PT/12:30pm – 3pm ET. The Fascia Lymph Connection is educational and experiential, designed to build body literacy and confidence in self-directed care. It will be recorded and available in your dashboard of this website after the live session with no expiration date.

Fascia-Lymph Connection This online workshop offers an introduction to the anatomy and function of both the fascia and lymph systems and demonstrates where and how they overlap.

Completed the Abdominal Adhesions class with Isabel Spradlin, Registered Nurse, Certified Lymphedema Therapist, and Massage Therapist. Adding more knowledge and experience to better support those recovering from surgery.

Thanks Kathleen Lisson for sharing this news!
Advances in scientific research looking at causes of chronic diseases due to underlying lymphatic disease:
"The lymphatic system doesn't just support health, it defines it, so when it is not functioning correctly the impact is significant. Many common chronic diseases, such as heart failure, diabetes, obesity, autoimmune disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, glaucoma, chronic kidney, and liver disease can be driven or worsened by abnormal lymphatic function.

https://arpa-h.gov/news-and-events/arpa-h-glide-program-set-prevent-and-cure-human-disease-targeting-lymphatic-system?fbclid=IwY2xjawQePoRleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETF2ZHdwaHdva1l3cFV0V0dUc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHtWRUMwAP97ug2vJnWOsxdHUUgKEk07gLid6Xm4dNrQpDqhpzhcW2jN6TzUF_aem_QYUv7sRvCfGjjD67VNzmAg

ARPA-H GLIDE program set to prevent and cure human disease by targeting the lymphatic system The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) supports transformative research to drive biomedical and health breakthroughs ranging from molecular to societal to provide transformative health solutions for all.