Downtown Flagstaff · With Dr. Sara Hazel

Lymphatic Drainage & the Interstitium

Most of the fluid in your body is not blood. Lymph and interstitial fluid carry what the circulation leaves behind and the wastes the tissues produce. When this fluid is sluggish you can see an increase in swelling, pain, heaviness, inflammation, immune system problems, bloated abdomen, and brain fog. Unlike blood, this body wide fluid is not pumped by the heart. This fluid moves with gravity or when the structures around it move. Body movements and muscle contraction and deep breathing are key, but massage can also help. Sixty minutes of light, specific, sequenced work to get it flowing. $130, with Dr. Hazel. Pay at your visit. No card needed to book.

Book with Dr. Hazel What the Session Is Easiest way to book — call(928) 444-9411

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14 E. Birch Ave · one block off Route 66
Wed 10–7 · Thu–Sat 10–8 · Sun 10–5 · Closed Mon–Tue

Lymphatic drainage session at Barefoot Sage Center, Flagstaff

The Newest Old Anatomy

The space between everything.

For most of the history of medicine, the tissue between your cells was described as dense connective tissue — packing material. Not dynamic, and frankly not understood to be very important.

Looked at live, it is something else entirely: a widespread, fluid-filled space supported by a network of thick collagen bundles — in the skin, around the airways and the arteries, through fascia, and in the wall of the whole digestive tract and bladder. Many substances, especially waste substances, debris, and infectious particles need to be moved and cleaned and processed out of this fluid. It has only recently been described in its own right — the interstitium — and shown to drain directly to the lymph nodes.

Which is to say: medicine has recently finished describing a space that the hands-on traditions have been working for a very long time.

Why This Works

Structure and flow decide each other.

The body is a structure, and it is a set of fluids and forces that must move through it. Both can be worked on directly — and each one influences the others.

Fascia webs, joint alignment and posture are the scaffolding that determines where fluid travels freely and where it pools. Restore the architecture and the fluid moves. And it runs the other way, more so as we get older: clear the swelling and the stagnation and the structure becomes easier to change, the joint easier to move, the muscle easier to strengthen, pain and inflammation are reduced.

The Session

Sixty minutes, and lighter than you expect.

This is not deep tissue. The vessels that carry lymph sit just beneath the skin. The pressure that moves them is closer to stretching the skin than to pressing into muscle — and pressing harder does not move more fluid. It moves less.

Sequence matters more than force. The work opens the drainage points first and clears the regions that feed them, so that what you move has somewhere to go. Done out of order it is just a pleasant rub.

Breath is part of it. The body’s largest lymphatic vessel runs up through the diaphragm, which means the way you breathe is already either pumping it or leaving it to sit.

And where the structure itself is holding fluid in place — a restricted joint, a fascial line that will not glide, a posture that closes a drainage route — that gets addressed in the same hour. That is the part a protocol alone will not reach. Sometimes we will use gravity or hot and cold applications to help pump the blood circulation or enhance the drainage.

Lymphatic Drainage

Move what is standing still.

60 min · $130With Dr. Sara Hazel

Book →60 min with Dr. Hazel

Questions about whether this is the right session for you — call (928) 444-9411 and ask for Dr. Hazel.

Also Here

The rest of the method.

Lymphatic work sits inside a larger practice — clinical bodywork, exercises, red light therapy, hot and cold applications, reflexology, the movement classes, and the functional medicine that keep fluid moving between sessions.

See All Services Movement & Longevity Classes

Find Us

14 E. Birch Avenue, Flagstaff

Downtown, one block off Route 66 — a short walk from the train station and the hotels.

(928) 444-9411

Hours

Wednesday 10am – 7pm
Thu – Sat 10am – 8pm
Sunday 10am – 5pm
Closed Mon & Tue

Walk-ins welcome when the schedule allows — calling ahead is the surest way to a table.
Payment at your visit; no card needed to book.