Is Your Lymphatic System Stuck? How Toxins Build Up When Your Drainage System Slows Down

In this episode, Dr. Hugh talks about one of the most missed parts of healing: the lymphatic system.

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Your lymphatic system is like your body’s cleanup crew. It helps move waste, toxins, mold, heavy metals, bacteria, and other unwanted junk out of your body.

But here is the problem.

If your lymphatic system is slow or stuck, those toxins may sit in your tissues, blood, liver, and gut. This can make it harder for your body to heal.

Dr. Hugh explains this in simple terms so you can understand why lymph drainage matters, especially if you deal with chronic illness, fatigue, swelling, inflammation, gut problems, or toxic overload. 

In This Podcast, You Will Learn:

• What the lymphatic system does
• Why lymph drainage is important for detox
• How toxins can build up in the body
• Why movement helps lymph flow
• How the liver and gallbladder help remove waste
• Why bile and bowel movements matter
• How binders may help carry toxins out
• Simple ways to support lymph flow at home

Dr. Hugh Covers These Key Topics:

• The lymphatic system collects waste
  •  Dead cell parts 
  •  Germs 
  •  Mold 
  •  Heavy metals 
  •  Drugs 
  •  Gut bacteria waste 
  •  Other toxins 
• The lymph system does not have a pump
  •  Your heart pumps blood. 
  •  Your lymph system moves through motion. 
  •  Your muscles help squeeze lymph forward. 
• Poor movement can slow detox
  •  If you do not move much, lymph can become sluggish. 
  •  This may lead to more swelling, inflammation, and toxin buildup. 
• Your liver and gallbladder matter
  •  Lymph drains into the blood. 
  •  The blood carries waste to the liver. 
  •  The liver makes bile. 
  •  Bile helps move toxins into the gut so they can leave through stool. 
• Bowel movements are important
  •  If toxins are pushed into bile but not removed, they may be reabsorbed. 
  •  Dr. Hugh explains why regular bowel movements can be a key part of healing. 

Five Simple Ways to Help Move Your Lymph:

• Use a chi machine
• Ride a stationary bike
• Sweat with a sauna blanket
• Dry brush your skin
• Try rebounding

Why This Episode Matters

If you have chronic health problems, your lymphatic system may need support. You do not always need to “detox harder.” Sometimes your body needs help moving its natural drainage system.

When lymph, liver, gallbladder, gut, and bowel movements work together, your body has a better chance to remove waste and start healing.

Listen to this episode if you struggle with:

• Chronic fatigue
• Brain fog
• Swelling
• Inflammation
• Toxic overload
• Mold exposure
• Heavy metal exposure
• Gut problems
• Poor detox
• Slow recovery

Main Message

Your body was built with a cleanup system. But that system must move.

When your lymph system moves, your body can drain better, detox better, and heal better.

Transcript

0:01

Hello, community. This is Doctor Hugh coming at you. And today we have an awesome webinar that I put together. And it is it is called Toxin Stuck. Are you stuck? Are you full of a bunch of toxins because your lymphatic system is not draining. So your lymphatic system is very, very critical for eliminating heavy metals, molds, pollutants, bugs, a whole bunch of things. And what we're going to go through is after 27 years of clinical experience, I've found out that this is a very, very important, critical step that a lot of people are missing, and that is that their lymphatic system is not draining properly. And if you don't have the proper draining of your lymphatic system, the toxins literally sit within your lymphatic system. They sit within your blood, they sit with your love in your liver, and you just cannot get well because you have a slow, sluggish lymphatic system where toxins are literally building up, building up, and causing your body to be more and more toxic. And really, when it comes to my clientele, I'm dealing with a lot of people that have a lot of pretty significant chronic illness and their lymphatic system is not draining. And that is one of your number one, one of your number one priorities when it comes to detoxification and getting your body healing and turning you, turning the needle from sickness and disease to actually health. So what we're going to be talking about here is a whole webinar here is going to be strictly on your lymphatic system and on your liver and how you can get the system working. So before we really get into this, let's go over a couple of things. Right here is, first of all, what does the lymphatic system do? So we have a great picture right here. So your lymphatic system is all over your entire body. In here. You can see how the lymphatic system kind of goes up your leg. It will go up your up your arm, up your arm in here. And then it comes around and then it will enter your circulation after it's gone around and circulated and collected all the bad debris, bugs, heavy metal mold, antibiotics to get rid of that. But the thing is, if you do not have a good lymphatic system, these toxins literally sit within your body and cause more problems. So first of all, what does the lymphatic system pick up? So it's going to pick up metabolic waste products. It's going to break up. Uh, basically when cells die like broken pieces of cell. So every second that you were alive, cells are dying. We need to get rid of that debris. And that is literally comes in in your lymphatic system. It gets rid of germs in here. Toxins. Uh, this right here is LPs from the gut. So these are bug bacteria. So in short here, in short, the lymphatic collects waste from lymph lymph nodes, filters it and cleans it and keeps everything moving. So here we have basically part one. Here is this lymphatic system. The interstitial fluid is around the cells, and then that gets in what they call your lymph capillaries. And then from there it goes into the lymph vessels and then the lymph nodes. So you can see these larger spots right here. Those are the lymph nodes in your body. Now, every one of us, when God designed us, we have around 200 to 400 lymph nodes within our within our whole entire body. And that's really where the magic happens within our body. When it comes to detoxification, one of the systems is in your lymphatic system. So how does this process actually start? So what we're going to do here is you can see this right here. This is a picture of your digestive system. And in here you can see that we're blowing up a little bit of this section right here of your small intestine. So we're going to kind of focus on this thing right in here. So down here you can see here we have the lymphatic system. We have the artery system. And then we have the venous system. So one of the things that you really want to understand is when it comes here to the lymphatic system or the lacteal, when it's in your stomach, it's called the lacteal. This is your fat absorption. So when you eat fats that goes through your lymphatic system, it doesn't go through your arteries or your veins initially because the fats are not water soluble. So when it comes to the blood, we can only really absorb things that are water soluble. And anything that has to do with fat, that's going to go straight through the lymphatic system. And this is what you're seeing right here, is this lymphatic system starting from the entire gut. And you can see these are the little fat cells right there. And the fat cells, they end up going into the lymph. And then your lymph here. That's the lymph that lymph drains in your entire system. That drains in your entire system in here and starts the detoxification process. So this is a really, really good visual. So one thing, if you know anything about my content is I'm a pitcher. I learn my pitchers and most people learn by pitcher. So I want to give you a good visual on how your lymphatic system is working. Now, at the end, I'm going to give you really five key resources that you can do to increase your lymphatic system. And to be honest with you, it's not tough at all. It's not hard to increase your lymphatic system. So right here we have the arteries. You can see the arteries. So the blood comes in here and then it oxygenates your tissues. And then it comes down here to the veins. The venule right now in here you can see that what's returning in here is roughly 90%. So we have 100% starting here. So this is 100% that starts here. And by the end here we're left with 90%. So that means basically in here that 10% of the volume that's in your blood is going to be leached out, and it's going to be leached out into this space right in here. And this is what we call the interstitial space. And these right here, these little these are your little cells, right? So all the food and the nutrient comes in your cells right here. And then what happens then you see the lymphatic system right in here. So the lymphatic system will pick up the heavy metals, molds, drugs and other toxins and any kind of other debris that's floating around in your blood. Right. So that's going to pick up any kind of thing that's in the blood. But then you have to realize that this is also fat loving. Most of your toxins in your body actually live in the fat. So in here, we see that your lymphatic picks up the mold, it picks up heavy metals, it picks up drugs and these kind of things. So look at this right here. So without the lymph drainage fluid builds up and swelling and edema can start to take place. So what exactly is all in this lymphatic system. So one thing you have to realize here you see all these arrows right in here. This is the fluid exchange. So there's things that are actually coming out of the the artery right here or the capillary going into your tissue. So this tissue, what tissue would this be. This would be like your liver. This would be your stomach. This would be your muscle. This would be your gallbladder. These are just the little tissues right there. And then your lymphatic system needs to pick up this 10% that is kind of this interstitial fluid. And this is where all these toxins live at. So what exactly is in the lymphatic system? So the first things here is you can see right here. So we have the interstitial fluid. So this is the base of the lymph. So 95% of the lymph is actually is actually water right here. Okay. Then we have the fat. So what's in the fats. We have vitamin A, D, E and k. So the lymph from the gut carries fats and vitamins throughout your whole entire body. The lymph also is going to, uh, carry proteins within your body. So we have albumin right here, which you can see that on like standard blood work. And then you have the globulins. Right now, the biggest thing right here is this is your immune system. So within the lymph, we have the immune system. And this is a huge component of people that have chronic illness. They just have a poor immune system. So they have the T cells and the B cells within the lymphatic system. So the lymphatic is like your body's cleanup system and delivery. And we get this stuff away from our body. So the lymphatic system must, must, must be working properly. And after 27 years of clinical experience, most people's lymphatic system is not functioning. So when clients come to me, I separate their plan into like two portions. There's the physical medicine portion. So the physical medicine portion would be like cleaning your lymph, making sure your lymph is flowing. And it's not hard to do that, but it's the number one priority to make sure that the lymphatic system is indeed actually flowing. And here you can see here that this is a healthy lymphatic system. So you can see here how the lymphatic is draining. This is the kind of the interstitial fluid there. The the the debris here is basically leaving the cells coming into lymphatic system. And then in here, this is a great picture of your lymphatic node. And that's where your whole immune system sits. Now in here we have this process right in here. So we have stagnant pond lymphatic system that's not draining. You can see how there's a bunch of debris in here, the debris, heavy metals, bacteria from from your gut. So this pool, so there's poor drainage waste builds up. And then the system is under lots of clinical stress. So we've we've, we can have congestion congestion toxicity and lots of lots of inflammation. Now one of the things is we have to realize when it comes to the lymphatic system, and then we have the blood flow. So those are really two different separate systems. So in guide design this he designed this with our heart, right. So when we talk about the blood flow, the heart pumps and that pumps the blood throughout your whole entire body, the lymphatic system does not work like that. The lymphatic system does not have a pump. The lymphatic system works on motion. So if you are not moving right. So a lot of clients that come to me, they just cannot move. They have a hard time moving. They can't exercise. Their balance is off. So if you don't have that motion, you're not actually going to be moving the lymphatic system. So the lymphatic system moves with what here motion muscle contraction. And here the blood moves just with the contraction of the heart. So also too, when people get older, what happens with their ability to exercise? People just don't exercise. Their muscles aren't as big, so the muscles actually will squeeze. Like when you contract your leg muscles, that's squeezing the lymph and moving the lymph from your lower extremities up into your chest, and then it drains back into your blood system. And I'll be talking about that in a second. So you can see here how the lymphatic system, it has these little valves right here. Right. So this is a little valve. So when you contract your muscles the lymph pushes up. And then if these valves are if these valves are nice and solid, the lymphatics does not drain back. So what I've seen clinically is when people have tissue damage, when they've taken antibiotics, the tissues aren't well and these valves do not work. So in here the lymphatic valve is a one way valve. So there's no pumping there's no pumping action. The pumping action happens strictly from your muscles contracting. So if you're exercising, if you can't contract your muscles really hard, your lymphatic system to some degree or another is going to be stagnant. And we do not want stagnant lymphatic system because that will Just make poor detoxification. So the lymph is moving through your body, through motion, through squeezing the muscles. Okay, here's another great visual on this. So you can see here this is the lymphatic flow. So we have the lymphatic lymphatic flow right here. It's flowing up. It's flowing up. You can see here that we have the little valves. So then we have nice healthy muscles. The muscles contract. And then you can see right here the lymphatic system is being pushed up. So what we really want is we want the lymphatic system to be pushed up from your chest, in your hands, pushed up towards your chest, right. And then it comes into your circulatory system. And then guess what? It goes around and it ends up in your liver. So if you have poor lymphatic system, if you have poor liver detoxification, you are going to be massively toxic and not get well. So here one well, one way valve, one way valve right here. Now let's take this. Let's take it when the muscles don't move. So we here, here we have muscles that really aren't as large. So you can see here these are nice healthy, plump muscles. In here. We have muscles that aren't very plump. They're not contracting. Um, and then you can start to see how these, the debris starts to basically stagnant in the lymphatic flow. So the lymph flow is sluggish. The lymph flow is very slow. And this is where the detoxification happens. You can get edema. You can get, uh, you know, fluid pooling in the tissues. And this is critical right here. The waste, the waste and toxins remain in the area. So muscle contraction is very, very important to get this exchange of the lymphatic system going. Now here the three core functions of the lymphatic system. One is to get the fluid moving out. So you can see here this is this interstitial fluid right here. And you can see this interstitial fluid. This is coming from your arteries, right? It's coming in here. It's going into the tissue. It's feeding the tissues. And then the lymphatic system needs to pick it up. And then when the lymphatic system picks it up, then we go into your immune system. So when it when it's in your lymphatic system, then we have this. Your immune system right here is surveying. Okay. Surveying all this material in there and seeing if this is friend or foe. Is this friend is this friend, is this a friend or is this a foe? But when you have stagnant, uh, lymphatic system, the immune system gets very, very confused and your immune system gets thrown off, and then you have chronic systemic inflammation. Now here, this is a this is a really good picture of the lymph nodes. So you can see right here we're talking about the lymph node. So what exactly is in the lymph node. And remember you have anywhere between you have anywhere between 300 and 400 of these lymphatic nodes. So this right here it's going to carry the T cells which is a significant part of your immune system. It's going to carry the B cells. It's going to have antibodies. And in here it's going to clean. It's going to clean the extra lymph. So the lymph is filtered and free of invaders and debris. This is all happening within the lymph node. And if we kind of go down in here, you can see this is the little kind of um, key on what these different things actually are within the lymph node. So the lymph is very, very critical. You want to make sure that you have good healthy lymph flow. And if you don't, you're going to have a hard time recovering and getting well. So this is just another really great visual diagram here. The five main types of waste and unwanted material the lymph picks up. So a metabolic metabolic byproducts lactic acid urea excesses excessive carbon dioxide cell debris cells are always dying. Pathogens environmental pollutants. This is huge. It could be heavy metals. Uh could be chemicals could be be environmental pollutants. This is LPs, basically bacteria. When bacteria die in your gut, they kind of poop. And the poop is what we call the LPs right here. You see the LPs, all that is collected. So within short, the immune system, the lymphatic system is working 24 hours a day, seven days a week to keep you balanced and to keep you healthy. So once this is going through the lymphatic system, then what happens? So then what happens in here is the lymphatic system drains into your veins. So you can see this is a really great blow up right here. So you can see the green right there. That's the lymphatic system that drains into your veins. Okay. It drains into this thing right here, which is called your left subclavian vein. So really what happens is you have the lymphatic system is picking up all these debris in the lymph, in the lymphatic system, in the nodes. It's trying to get rid of it. And then it's basically empties up here up in your chest area into your vein. So it goes into the blood, the blood circulation. And then from there, guess where it ends up. It's going to end up in your liver in here. And this is a great picture. You can just see how the lymphatic system is draining right here, draining into your subclavian that circles into your body and it ends up going to your liver. Now this is here. So once it goes to your liver, so you can see in here, this right here is your, your your liver, right. So all this lymphatic, um, extra tissue that has gone into the subclavian in your arteries eventually is going to end up in your liver. And then your liver processes it processes that and then it makes bio. Okay, so it's going to make bile. So let me just kind of break this up. So first of all, we have the lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is basically the fat containing immune system in your body. So all these different chemicals, drugs, antibiotics, bacteria, mold, heavy metals, environmental pollutants end up in your lymphatic system. Your lymphatic system needs to drain by contraction of the muscles. It needs to contract by the muscles right here. Then it contracts by the muscles and then it's pushed out into your blood, your venous system, and then it ends up in your liver. And then your liver packages that into bile. So this is really, really critical when we talk about bile and what happens with the bile. Okay. So in here we have a great picture of the liver. And then we have the gallbladder, right? So we have the gallbladder. So the bile it has bilirubin. It has endotoxins from bacteria, excessive cholesterol, heavy metals, environmental pollutants, mold. All this stuff sits in here in the bio and then the bile, um, when you actually contract your bile or your or your gallbladder. What happens here is this ends up in your small intestine. So the bile here is going to end up in your small intestine. And then you're going to be able to poop that out. So at the end of the day, the lymphatic system gets all the toxins. Once it's in the toxins, it goes into your blood. And then from there it goes to your liver. And then your liver converts all these toxins into bile. And then your bile excretes that in your small intestine. So how the heck does this actually happen? How does this excretion actually happen? So in here you can see here that we have the gallbladder, right? So we're going to have the gallbladder. And then basically the liver is going to be right up on top. So if we go up to this picture right here, so you can see the, uh, you can see the liver right there and how the liver feeds into the gallbladder. Now check this out the way God designed our body. So here we have the small intestine right here. And then we have your pancreas, and your pancreas produces digestive enzymes. And you can see this hole right here. There's this thing called here, the oddi, the sphincter of oddi. So what the heck is the sphincter of oddi? The sphincter of oddi is where the gallbladder contracts and it pushes the bile. So that's the bile. It pushes the bile out into your small intestine. Because we want to get rid of that stuff, because the bile has a lot of toxins in it and we want to get rid of it. Now the thing is, is most of the bile, 95% of the bile is reabsorbed. So if you have a chronic illness, if you have heavy, heavy metals, we have to make sure we have to make sure that you are moving your bowels, that you're having 2 to 3 bowel movements every single day, no gas, no bloating. We want to make sure that your gut is well, because when the gallbladder contracts and you can see here by this picture right here, it contracts and it squirts out. It squirts out the bile right here in the sphincter of oddi. And this is a a muscle contraction right here. Now in here, you can see in this picture right here there's two things that really happen. The first thing right here is we have the gallbladder right. And that pumps the bile out here in your small intestine. And then the second thing is we have digestive enzymes which are produced by your pancreas. And they squirt out the same hole, the sphincter of oddi. So there's really two really critical factors when it comes to the bile. One uh the liver. So we're going to we're going to be producing the bile. And that's going to squirt out all the toxins. And at the same time, when the gallbladder contracts your, your, your pancreas contracts and produces digestive enzymes to break down the food that you actually just ate. So here's another great picture of this is you can see right here, this is when this, this sphincter of oddi is contract. Nothing's going through here. Nothing is being pushed out in your small intestine. Then you can see here, when this sphincter is relaxed, then you have the pancreatic duct producing its digestive enzymes and the bile duct going into the small intestine right in here. Now what tells this to loosen up and be relaxed is the presence of food and the presence of hydrochloric acid. And the bile is loaded with a bunch of toxins. And if you're toxic, we want to make sure that we grab those toxins. And instead of reabsorbing it, like I said, 95% of bile is reabsorbed. If you're toxic, we want to grab that bile and we want to poop it out, right? So we want to grab the bile and poop it out. So what do we do? We use this thing called binders, right? So this is the product I like. This is um, Quicksilver ultra binder. This is what I like. And this is a great visual. So what the heck do binders do. So we have the bile right in here. So you can see the bile is right here. It's pushing out. It's contracted from the gallbladder. It's pushed out. And you can see here that it has a whole bunch of nasty things in there, things that we don't want, right? So things that we don't want. And if you don't have binders, like not everyone needs to use binders if you're sick, if you have heavy metals, if you've taken antibiotics and you have a bunch of antibiotics running around in your body, we want to grab the bile and we want to make sure that it binds up and you poop it out. So this is what the binders do. This is a really, really great visual. I love this visual right here. So you can see the binders bind to waste products in the gut. So you can see this picture right here and how that it's binding to the different toxins here. You can see here how this is LPs, heavy metals, drugs. You can see how it's in the binder, right? So the binder, what the binder does is it binds it up. So it can't be reabsorbed because your body is very, very good at at absorbing or reabsorbing bile. So when you bind this stuff up, then you can excrete it. You can poop it out. So binders help carry bile and toxins out through the stools. This is why binders are are very critical. I use binders now. You don't want to jump to binders. You got to have to do a layer approach when it comes to getting better, especially if you have some kind of chronic illness and disease, which most of my clients actually do. So this right here, so you can see here. So if you don't have the binders, you can see what happens. You have all the toxins that are sitting right in this space right here. They sit around, there's no binders to grab them. And then what happens? They get reabsorbed. They get reabsorbed. They get reabsorbed. So you can see what's happening here. We can have a huge cascade. So one of the things is we can have your lymphatic system not contracting. Well not your lymphatic circulation is poor. Then on top of that, if you have poor liver, you're not going to be excreting these toxins out through the liver and through the bile. Right. So they can be stagnant. They can literally be sitting in your body. Then on top of that, then if you are sick and you do excrete the bile and you have a bunch of toxins in there, heavy metals, molds. Um, whatever it is that can be reabsorbed in your body and that can make you sicker and sicker over a period of time. So this is why binders are really, really critical because all these things here can be reabsorbed back into your body and cause problems. Okay, so what are some things you can do to, to get your lymphatic system going? So this is, this is a great picture right here. There's a lot of things. There's five things. My favorite thing right here to get the lymphatic system going is the key machine. Now why do I love the key machine? A couple things on the key machine right here is one is um if you have poor muscles, if you don't have, if you're really sick, if you have chronic illness, if you don't have a lot of endurance, what happens here is when you do the lymphatic or when you do the chi machine, you're laying on your back. So when you're laying on your back, you're not fighting gravity. See, this is this is critical. This is why I love the chi machine. When my clients come to me, everyone gets put on the chi machine. Why? Because we're moving the lymphatic system. We're getting oxygenation moving. We're getting your liver moving through this motion, right through this motion. You're on your back. You're not against gravity. So then the system can start to filter. We can get the lymphatic system moving. And if you get the lymphatic system moving, this is when you can get the drainage moving. So this is the key machine. This is a very simple device. You move back and forth and you can see how this is showing the lymphatic system is going to be moving because your your feet here are slightly elevated. It's a gentle motion. It's moving the things up to your heart, getting lymphatic system going, getting your liver going, getting your gallbladder going. It's a very simple means to start increasing your lymphatic system. So that's one. So the key machine that's big biking. What do I like about biking. Just getting a stationary bike. I tell people go on Craigslist, go on marketplace, get yourself a stationary bike and just start pedaling five minutes a day. Get on there for one minute a day, say just pedaling, pedaling the bike, you're going to be contracting your legs. You're going to be contracting the muscles in your legs, pumping the lymph, getting the blood flow going, getting the lymphatic system going. That's critical. Sweating. One thing I do with my clients is I think most people should be getting a sauna blanket. Very simple. I have content on my website on this. You start to sweat. You can start to detoxify and get your lymphatic system going. Dry, dry, dry brushing and also rebounding all these things. Here are five very simple things that you can do to get the lymphatic system going. So if you have any chronic illness at all, if you if you're suffering from a chronic illness, your lymphatic system is not moving properly because that's just what happens with chronic illness. I hope this brought some value to you. You can see how the lymphatic system is very critical for detoxification, for healing. And it's not like you have to like go out and detoxify. Like, I don't like the word detoxify. What we're doing is we're working with, with Mother Nature, we're working, we're working with your God given detoxification system, which is your lymphatic system, your liver and your gallbladder. We just have to get the system moving because when people have chronic illness, they're really not exercising. Their muscles have atrophied, gotten smaller, maybe they can't exercise, you know, whatever it is, chronic fatigue, whatever it is. So the key machine is something very simple that people can do in their house. They lay on their back. You're taking gravity out of it. Your your legs are up a little bit. So you already have that gravity forcing the lymphatic system towards your heart. So then you can start to recycle this. So this has been a game changer for my clients is the lymphatic drainage in particular the chi machine. And this is a really, really good tool to use. So with that being said, I hope you enjoyed the content and remember this. Please remember this is where there is help. There is hope. Where there is help, there's hope. Take care. Bye bye.