Understanding The Importance Of The Lymphatic System

Christine Schaffner, N.D.

Oh, well, thank you, Robbie. So LUMVI is a combination of two words, luminous and vitality. So I combine them with this idea of really creating a skincare line as well as some personal care products that really increase our luminosity and our vitality.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Wow, great name. Perfect. I love names that actually means something as it’s connected to the purpose of the company or the body of work, and so we’re talking to the Lyme community. And when I looked at the LUMVI website, which is pretty cool, it’s a lot about skincare, and I know when you look good on the outside, you kind of sometimes feel good on the inside, and if you’re Lyme patient, you may not feel so good. So kind of like, I don’t know if it’s beauty power day or just, generally, looking good on the outside makes you feel a little better on the inside, but you’ve done something unique with your approach and your ambassadorship with LUMVI where you’ve actually dived into the formulations that have created some really unique applications that may start in the skin but like they say, skin is only. Like, beauty is on a skin deep but in fact, you’re looking at beautifying and optimizing health from the outside in and from the inside out,

Christine Schaffner, N.D.

Yeah, I do.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

And so talk to me about some of the formulations that you feel would be appropriate for the Lyme community to understand in the LUMVI line and with that.

Christine Schaffner, N.D.

Yeah, absolutely. So I think we can talk about a few things, but one of the inspirations that I had when we were creating the skincare line and curating the products is this cornerstone of lymphatic health with skin health, and as we’re talking about this product line in the context of the Lyme community, really understanding that we can use this, of course, for skin rituals and skincare, but there is also really a deep lymphatic support to this line, and so we created an oil-based infusion called Lympha-Gem, and there’s two applications.

It has a mini roller that you can kind of use on the go and then a body oil, and in my conversation with you previously, Robbie, we talked a lot about the lymphatic system, a lot about how the lymphatic system is really overlooked, really underadressed and really critical, I think, for recovering from Lyme. When we think about the lymphatic system, just a really brief, mini, right? That the lymphatic system is this, again, body-wide network of what we call capillaries that drain the, what we call, extracellular matrix, and then those capillaries feed into vessels, nodes and the lymphatic fluid makes its way back to the heart to get back into the blood stream. 

So it’s this interconnection between the circulatory system, the extracellular matrix and how we get rid of toxicants, how we support our immune system. So really essential for Lyme patients, right? And so we came up with an oil and honestly, part of the inspiration for this oil is a lot of my patients do castor oil packs, which I still very much highly recommend, but castor oil can be like this really heavy, thick oil, which is great. It’s great when you need it. I recommend castor oil packs over the liver, over the abdomen, areas of inflammation, but I wanted something a little bit more routine and lighter that can be used on a regular basis that doesn’t like ruin your clothes, or you have to sit down and not move, so that it doesn’t get everywhere, for 20 minutes, and so this oil infusion has a number of oils, like almond, jojoba, sesame, castor oil, and then we do a infusion with different really well-known plants that are really great to move lymphs. 

So that’s red root and calendula and cleavers and metals and red clover, and then we have a combination essential oil of frankincense, Helichrysum and geranium. So these all, if you look, all of these herbs and these essential oils, they all have different lymphatic properties, but in this oil infusion, you can use it as a whole-body oil. I sometimes do at night to support my lymphatic drainage at bed time, or you can concentrate on areas, like if you have an area that’s painful, if you wanna use it as kind of a quick castor oil pack. You can put it on your liver. You can put it over your abdomen, and that’s a really big area for the lymphatic system to drain. For women breast health, is really entied into lymphatic counts. So you can use it topically on breast tissue, and so the oil is an all purpose oil and then the mini one, you can carry in your purse. You can put it on kind of areas that are very commonly congested, especially for lymphatic. In Lyme patients, the lymphatic system, especially in the neck, around the cervical lymph nodes, I find that on Lyme and colon infections can infect the cervical lymph nodes.

If you have any dental issues that can impair the cervical lymph nodes, if your cervical lymph nodes aren’t draining, then you can have lymphatic congestion in the brain. So you can kind of use it on the go topically to that areas when you travel. So that’s really fun and then if. When we think about, again, all these medicinal reasons for supporting the lymphatic system, but just backing out too and thinking about lymphatic health with skin health, there’s a lot of conversations, right? About healthy collagen and then healthy elastin and healthy, all of these structural proteins that create hydration and making our skin look full and less wrinkled, the appearance of wrinkles, and I found that we don’t ever really talk about the lymphatic system when we’re talking about that, but in order to have healthy collagen and healthy elastin, you have to have really good healthy lymphatic drainage because if you kind of see a visualization. I’ll paint you the picture that surrounding your skin cells and surrounding collagen and elastin is this fluid, the extracellular fluid and the interstitial fluid that drains into this lymphatic network. So if the lymphatic system isn’t draining, this area becomes congested, clogged. It might look like puffiness, but it’s, basically, the collagen is not getting the oxygen and nutrients. Things are hanging out there that degraded over time and age you, and so I also thought that not only in this, again, could have this therapeutic purpose, but really to keep our skin healthy and prevent aging or reduce the speed of aging, we really need to have a conversation of draining our lymph for healthy skin.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Wow. You roll that up into just a simple delivery system. Either roll it on in the areas that are important or full-body application. I know in prior conversations, we’ve tapped into that inner voice inside of us, but you know what’s hurting, and that’s how easy it is for you just to take this application and put it, like if you’re having digestive challenges, just in your midsection to try to move things around.

Christine Schaffner, N.D.

Yeah.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

For people that are just turning in, the lymphatic system is driven by motion. The lymph nodes reside in your muscles, and so if you move around, then you actually can just squeeze the muscle, which squeezes the lymph node, which moves the lymph along as opposed to the heart that moves as a pump that moves the blood along. So now, We’ve got this whole percentage of Lyme patients out there that are having trouble getting out of bed.

Christine Schaffner, N.D.

Yes.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

And so they need things like your application, and it’s called Lympha-Gem, is that correct?

Christine Schaffner, N.D.

Yeah, Lympha-Gem. Uh-hmm, yeah.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Right. In order to stimulate that, and then something else that I just happened to glean when I was looking at the website. I’ve been fortunate in my life that for many years, like close to 20 every year, I would go to China and various different countries in the Asia block to procure factories and to my own device development and so forth, and so I’ve had the opportunity to be in the company of, and have therapies done, and there’s this therapy they call gua-sha, where they actually take the tool, and it’s like scraping and really, what they’re doing is they’re simulating this microcirculation, and what I noticed on the LUMVI side is you actually have these gua-sha tools that you, I guess somehow, integrate with the oils to, again, get better absorption and also to integrate into your blood flow. So you get both the topographical and the systemic benefits, right?

Christine Schaffner, N.D.

Uh-hmm. 

Robby Besner PSc.D.

So when I saw that, I go, oh my God, this- Beautiful but she also, like, is spot-on in integrating mind and body and getting all of these different systems working. So, wow. That’s really amazing, and so tell people how to find a LUMVI, and then you’ve got your hand in it. So I know there’s more formulations to come in the future, and so it’s so exciting to have you here as an ambassador for the company because you’re doing such great work with them.

Christine Schaffner, N.D.

Oh, thank you, thank you. So it’s lumviskincare.com, and that’s L-U-M-V-I, skincare.com and now, I have a gua-sha at my desk at home, if I’m in my cell phone, I’m in between working, I’m gua-shaing my face, and for patients also with Lyme who need to support their lymph, this is a great home tool, right? Because so you’re not having to rely on a practitioner or other expensive devices. At times, this can be very, quite helpful, and Robby, one other thing that I wanted to share is your technology with the infrared, right? That increases exclusions on water in the body, which helps to move the lymph in my opinion. So all of it, I think works in amazing synergy to really get your lymph moving out there.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Yeah, and we use, in our own applications, we use infrared frequencies, generally full spectrum, and that wavelength to actually drive oils into the body and to also increase blood flow and to do the energetic movement too to combine all of these systems together. So there is a strong synergy between the harnessing-like frequencies that we do and using it in conjunction or synergistically with applications like you’ve created. 

So it’s awesome, and I’m just always looking for the simple things that we can do in life that can create really great optimal results, and the idea that I could be not feeling so great, put a application like you’ve created with LUMVI on my skin or in a particular area over a lymph node, and then use a simple little scraping device to just drive that oil in and move that lymph along when I can’t do it because I’m not that active now is really amazing because it comes from something simple as that to then all of a sudden, now, I’ve got a foot out of bed and now I’m moving around and now, my body is actually, that system of movement is actually driving my lymphatic system, but it just started with, what do they say? “The journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.”

Christine Schaffner, N.D.

Yeah, yeah. Well, then.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Well, thank you for giving us a bird’s-eye view of what’s going on at LUMVI and for your participation with this company and how you elevate this simple process of just feeling good inside and out to the public and bringing it out there, and it’s so important to the Lyme community to know it. So thank you for that contribution.

Christine Schaffner, N.D.

Thank you, Robby. I really appreciate your time.

Robby Besner PSc.D.

Hey, everybody. It’s Robby Besner. Thanks so much for joining us today. Please share this content with anyone that you think might benefit from it, and we’re looking forward to having you with us tomorrow for another great interview.