Michelle Licha-Oros Scar + Lymph Wellness

Manual Lymphatic Drainage routine for breast swelling after lymph node removal

How To Reduce Breast Swelling Fast Lymphatic drainage is one of the primary treatments for lymphedema ...

Support your breasts with this breast tissue massage video. Thanks Rochelle Clark.

Deeper Breast Tissue Massage Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Breast Reduction Surgery Scar Tissue Therapy
❤️ Grateful to help clients resolve complications from scar tissue after breast surgery!!!

Read full testimonial below:
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"Michelle and her specialization of working with scar tissue in the breast has been an absolute saving grace. Her knowledge, and gift to get things settled down has been something I don't think I would have believed even six months ago before I started to have nerve impingement in my neck that was resulting in numb fingers. Through several skilled clinicians, the roots of the issue were traced back to a breast reduction I'd had, that was causing the scapula to round over and protect the left side. Michelle was paramount in untangling me (literally) and allowing things to soften and settle. I cannot recommend her highly enough!"

Webinar on Scars, Adhesions, Lymphatics and the Fascial System by Restore Scar Therapy.
A reminder that the way tissue heals and changes can have effects far beyond the original injury.

Scar tissue, adhesions, and fibrosis can affect the lymphatic system and circulation, restrict movement, and influence how the surrounding tissues function, well beyond the original site of injury or surgery.

The way tissue heals matters.

I help women recover after endometriosis surgery through manual lymphatic drainage and scar tissue therapy.

If you’re planning Endometriosis surgery, I hope you find this video helpful. Isabel Spradlin interviews Endometriosis Dietitian Cindy Dabrowska about nutrition support for endometriosis, including specific considerations before and after surgery.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuXCKoJeb7s&t=46s

Isabel Spradlin (Heal My Belly Adhesions and Beyond) is one of my teacher/mentors. Find more here: https://abdominaladhesiontreatment.com/

Cindy Dabrowska Dietitian
https://www.endometriosisdietitian.ca/

Nutrition, Endometriosis, and Adhesions | with Cindy Dabrowska, MAN, RD Isabel interviews Cindy Dabrowska about her nutrition work with peo...

I recently completed Sharon Wheeler’s four-day Integrating Women After Childbirth course, which focused on Scar Work and myofascial techniques related to pregnancy and childbirth.

The course taught techniques to release restrictions in the body resulting from childbirth. I was fortunate to learn alongside a diverse group of participants, richly experienced in postpartum care. I learned so much and was deeply moved by the experience. This class added a new perspective to how I support women through scar and lymphatic work.

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.