Go with the flow
Treating a patient for back pain in 1989 led osteopath and neuroscientist Raymond N. Perrin to the concept that there was a structural basis to myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). He has since spent three decades sifting through the scientific evidence on the condition and developing an effective technique based on lymphatic drainage—The Perrin Technique—for treating sufferers.
Here are his central findings.
The Perrin Technique: the facts Fact 1: Fluid flow
Fluid flows around the brain and continues up and down the spinal cord. This is known as cerebrospinal fluid and has many functions, including being a protective buffer to the central nervous system and supplying nutrients to the brain.
But one function that has received significant scientific attention only recently is the role it plays in the drainage of large molecules, including many poisons (toxins), out of the central nervous system into the lymphatic system.
This system, which I have referred to since 1989 as“neuro-lymphatic drainage,”has now been proven to exist by a brilliant group of scientists in the US and Europe who have termed this drainage “the glymphatic system,”as it has been shown to drain toxins from support cells in the brain known as the ‘glia’ to the lymphatics.1 In fact, actual lymphatic vessels have been discovered in the membranes of the brain in both animal and human studies, which can now be visualized by MRI scanning.2
Fact 2: Getting the toxins out
The lymphatic system is an organization of tubes around the body that provides a drainage system secondary to the blood flow. Why does the body need a secondary system to cope with poisons or foreign bodies in the tissues? Are the veins not good enough? The answer is size.
The blood processes poisons and particles that enter the circulatory system via the walls of
