What Caused My Flare Might Interest You

Endometriosis and Hashimoto Disease, Sauna, Lymph Node Care

A month ago, I saw a clip of a doctor speaking about how to increase the beneficial effects of sauna. I workout at my gym 2-3 times a week, and it’s typically 10-20 minutes of inclined walking followed by 30-40 minutes of weight-lifting followed by 10-20 minutes of sauna. I began doing sauna a year or so before Covid Year of Our Wrathful Lord 2020, when I had read a book on Scandinavian health practices that held information about the health benefits of cold plunging and sauna.

Me after workout and sauna

A History of Pain

I have Endometriosis Stage 4 and Hashimotos, both of which I’ve had since my teenage years; the Hashi was diagnosed in my early 20’s after I insisted repeatedly on a thyroid panel for bloodwork, meeting dismissive resistance from my doctor until my results came back and I was severely hypothyroid. The endometriosis was diagnosed in my 30’s, after the claws I had protracted- she-wolf as a mother- into my life to hold on, began to retract, and nothing I did, no amount of willpower or love, could stop the fall. The pain, the crushing fatigue, the chronic, acute infections, and just as significantly, the fact that the people around me clearly weren’t sure if I was just lazy and sad or actually sick. I was going to lose my job if I couldn’t figure out how to not be up all night on the bathroom floor, moaning and praying fervently to Divinity to please make whatever was wrong with me be something that would allow me to live to raise my children. One example of the plural sufferings: chest pains I had were so excrutiating that I felt sure, numerous times, that I would die of a heart attack on the floor, and every trip to the ER could find nothing but anxiety.

I was diagnosed and had a long road to health, which I’m writing about now, but this writing is not about that, it’s about what triggered a terrible flare for me, weeks ago, and what I did to reverse it.

Sauna and Lymph Node Massage

The doctor I was listening to gave information on research showing that working out and then using the sauna in a slight state of dehydration increased the burning of visceral fat, which is the unhealthy fat that gathers around your internal organs. I thought I’d try it, why not. The worse that could probably happen would be I’d hate how I felt, and discontinue the practice. I was wrong, and it definitely shored up my typical practice of researching research. Had I continued reading in a bit of rabbit hole, per usual, I probably would have stumbled into some writing that addressed the intersection of health issues I carry in my body and alerted me to possible problems.

At the same time I began doing this, I had picked back up the lymph node massage technique I had been formerly doing every sauna, but had dropped for no particular reason- perhaps time spent at the gym. This massage is something I’ve been doing for a couple of years, maybe twice a week, now done daily. Most people ( not everyone, because as this piece illustrates, various health conditions and physical realities can cause a practice to be detrimental for an individual despite the other 99 percent of people it helps ) who have any chronic illness or pain, or who are hoping to mitigate the negative effects of bad habits, could be doing lymph massage with great effect on their health and/or symptoms.

There are You-Tube videos on the order, duration, way in which to massage your lymph clusters (my lazy term, not a medical term, for the various points on the body where major lymph exists, such as the armpits, clavicle, chest, etc), there are at least a few books on lymph care and health benefits, such as The Book of Lymph, which is a solid beginner’s primer for lymph care, and as you would guess, podcasts where doctors, researchers, and writers are interviewed about the why and how of lymph care.

In my sauna

The Flare

A week later, I began to have symptoms of a flare. For me, these symptoms are brain fog, fatigue, pain in limbs and abdomen, swelling in ankles, abdomen, hands, arms, and face, headaches, nausea. Other symptoms began to appear, dizziness, a UTI, a yeast infection. The pain increased. My legs and arms throbbed day and night. No matter how much I slept, I was exhausted. The enormous bags under my eyes made me feel pathetic, as they brought back all the memories of my 20’s and 30’s when every day I looked as if I’d been up all night drinking or using drugs and then stumbled into work the next day, barely functioning, when in reality I didn’t drink at all, didn’t smoke, didn’t do any drugs, and was doing everything I knew to do to be in good health. It was degrading and affected the way my adult life played out as much as PTSD from childhood trauma did.

The connection between childhood trauma and chronic disease is even more fascinating when you learn that studies show that chronic stress causes muscle tightness which cuts off the ability of your lymph clusters to properly flush the fluid full of toxins out of your body, so that it stagnates. And that stagnation does what any stagnation does- breeds disease, overgrowths, imbalance, and in the case of human beings, disease and pain. My mind spins with the possible repercussions of ongoing childhood trauma and the lymph being cut off- the effects on your vasculatory system, nervous system, joints, brain! It gives ‘the body never forgets’ another anchor of our understanding. How can it forget, when we trap what is meant to be let? So much research in my future. But I digress-

The flare quickly went from annoying to scary. The treatments I do for signs of a flare usually work within a few days, and instead of this, I was getting worse. My pain and fatigue, and the sheer number of proliferating symptoms, were at levels I hadn’t experienced since my last and final surgery for Endometriosis. My abdomen became unbearably painful, swollen enormously, hot to the touch. Anxiety set in. I spun out for a few days, feeling lost and confused, and then I began googling, reading, and picking up books I had in my house and at my work at a bookstore, and a lightbulb went on, even in my foggy and exhausted state.

Here’s what had happened:

The current state of my daily body is perimenopause, Hashimoto, and endometriosis exist within me, usually at levels I can manage with a lot of rest, supplements, and the way I eat and move my body.

When entering a sauna, the vascular system of the body is ‘opened’. This flushing effect reminds me of Niacin flushes, less dramatic, not annoying, but extremely beneficial to health in numerous ways. Sauna also encourages the body via expansion of tissue to let go of toxins (which includes a variety of particles such as destroyed bacteria from within the body to outside toxins introduced to the body through air, food, etc) which will be transported via fluid made of various components of life such as oxygen, protein etc, but primarily made of water. Blood is primarily water (blood plasma) and blood cells.

As we know, when we sweat, water moves from our blood and fluid (inside and out of cells) and through our skin. The exact mechanisms that occur in fat in the body during sauna are under-researched, but you can find some information on toxins stored in fat, though the words ‘possibly’ and ‘conceptually’ and ‘theoretically’ are used a lot!

Lymph massage starts the fluid flush of the lymph nodes, meaning that lymph nodes only do ‘hard work’ when instigated by outside forces, unlike the vascular system, which is propelled by the heart’s pumping. Stroking in the direction the lymph fluid will flow, you move through the different sections of the body, releasing the toxins into your bloodstream for extraction and removal via urine, primarily.

So at the exact same time I was doing numerous areas of flushing for my body- exercise, sauna, and lymph massage- I had started drinking significantly less water around the time of the sauna, per the study I read.

I postulated that it was a build up of toxins in my body that was making me sick. I immediately began taking activated charcoal* drinking chlorophyll and tons of mineral water, and within one overnight was already much, much better. My UTI and yeast and vaginal swelling was gone. My stomach was half as big, and much less painful- my worst symptom. My headache was almost gone. My limbs didn’t hurt as much. Within three days of the activated charcoal twice a day (a pain to figure out around eating and taking meds as it pulls out beneficial components as well as. negative) drinking mineral water, eating without any sugar or inflammatory foods, using my red light, I was back to normal.

I went back to the sauna and my lymph routine, but now take charcoal before the sauna twice a week. Charcoal is a binder (it’s what they’ll often give poisoning cases in the ER) and In the course of reading, I became convinced that this is something beneficial for me to do, with my health concerns, even without a flare. There isn’t any research I could find showing that taking charcoal like this negatively effects the beneficial bacteria in your gut, which was a concern, but I plan on doing an on and off course, with a few weeks off. I also drink kefir and eat gut friendly herbs and spices.

I am off in a world of lymph now, reading and learning as much as I can. I hope this helps someone else to read. Inflammation equals pain in the body. Blocked lymphs cannot help filter toxins as they are meant to, and toxins cause inflammation when not dealt with as they are meant to by the primary filtration systems in our body- lymph, kidneys, liver, which divert to urine and poop.

So many treatments that give pain relief have the same ultimate result: reduction in swelling, ie reduction in inflammation. It’s not their only mechanism but one of the most important- think acupuncture, cupping, massage, compression, herbs and vitamins that increase vascular flexibility, etc.

In conclusion, I learned a lesson the hard way, and I’m passing it on to you the easy way. Because I love you. xo

* we always have activated charcoal in the house as it’s a go to for nausea or any gastrointenstinal issues. it’s also safe for most pets (check with your vet! i’m not a vet!)