[00:00:01] Luke: So if I'm not mistaken, Desiree, you are the second New Zealander guest I've had after Veda Austin. If any of the other guests from New Zealand are listening, I didn't mention them, but that's the only one I remember. And when I was contemplating that, I was wondering, I wonder who the first person I met from New Zealand was.

[00:00:26] And it brought me back to a really interesting experience very early in my healing journey wherein I was invited to a healing session with these Maori people that were visiting Los Angeles up in Topanga Canyon, of course. And they were doing this Maori body work. And so I went and saw them, and I remember sitting in what would've been the waiting room, kind of, the foyer of the house.

[00:00:52] And then they were off in the main room, a couple of them, with massage tables and whatnot. And I just heard these people screaming bloody murder in there. And I almost turned around. I was like, what is happening? But I said, "Well, I'm here. I'm going to stick with it." And my face is down, my eyes are closed, so I don't know who was doing what or with what they were doing.

[00:01:12] And I think they were probably walking on me and things of this nature. And I remember excruciating physical pain. But I had this incredible-- it's the first time in my life I had a somatic trauma release. It brought me back to all of these traumas in my life, all of this pain, and just emotional hurt that was obviously stored in my body.

[00:01:35] And that was something that I haven't thought about in a long time, but that was one of the first connections I made between the body and the spirit and how our emotions get stored in the body. And they were really beautiful people, and I think they were the first people I ever met from New Zealand.

[00:01:50] Desiree: Well, that would've been midi midi, and it is designed to allow you to release trauma, and it can be very excruciating, especially when they get the elbow into the belly button, which is the life force of where you've come from life. But yeah, [Inaudible] have a beautiful way of looking at health.

[00:02:09] And we talk about the wairua. So the wairua is the two personalities where we are bringing in the one of your personality who you came in to be, but also the sole purpose of why you're here. And the key is to bring the rivers together so you're being a true, authentic self, living life, doing what you're meant to be here doing, not what society defines. So yeah, but it's a very, very powerful body work. So I'm not surprised. Been there, done that. Exactly know what you felt.

[00:02:37] Luke: Yeah. Pretty intense. I forgot about the belly button piece. I do remember the back of my thighs being a particular area of interest in terms of-- yeah, I think what was odd about it to me at the time was just this involuntary cascade of memories. It took me into some kind of dream state where I was almost like a current life regression, a life review that you hear about when someone has a near-death experience. They just, woo. They whiz through their life like a movie. It was like that.

[00:03:08] Desiree: Yeah, it is. I presume they did a prayer beforehand.

[00:03:12] Luke: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a family. It was actually a family deeply steeped in that particular modality. Yeah.

[00:03:19] Desiree: Yeah, yeah. So family in New Zealand's called whanau. So whanau means more than just family. It's more like you've got biological family. Yes. But it's more about the people that you live your life and associate your life with. We have four pillars in New Zealand-- mind, body, spirit, but we also have whanau because the family that you choose can have a big impact on your overall health and wellbeing. So it's very big that they do come together very strong as whanau in New Zealand to be able to deliver healing because it's not just one person often that needs to be there for someone.

[00:03:56] Luke: A team, especially when you're really messed up like I was.

[00:03:59] Desiree: Yeah. Wow. I think everyone is messed up.

[00:04:02] Luke: Needed the whole council of elders to beat it out of my body. But it's funny, actually, the correlation between that and your passion and the work you do in the world around lymphatics and this technology-- I can never say it right-- Flowpresso that you've developed.

[00:04:17] And the first time I met you was here in the house, and Freddie Kimmel, our mutual friend, who's a lovely guy, been on the show at least once before, he brought you over and said, oh, you've got to try this technology. You have to meet Desiree. And both Alyson and I had a really lovely experience with you and also with the treatment, I guess you could call it.

[00:04:37] And it was really nice. And I thought, man, I could do this every day. It was so relaxing. So it's interesting that my two touch points from New Zealand have to do with pressure on the body as a healing modality. Did that have anything to do with your becoming interested in this particular field?

[00:04:58] Desiree: So I went through quite a life change in my late 20s, and that's when I decided to get into health. And so I did an unusual journey where I did shiatsu. So I studied the energy more so, and then I moved into more the body work through ortho-bionomy. And it was through that that I learned about lymphatics from a Chapman's reflex point of view, which is an osteopathic way.

[00:05:21] And that's when I fell in love with the lymphatics. But the beauty about being in New Zealand, we often are with elders the, kaumātua, we call them, and I spent time with one and learnt many things that can't even-- may say esoteric or out there, the woowoo, we call it in New Zealand.

[00:05:43] Because I'd already been trained to feel energy, then you are able to understand it even on a deeper level. And lymphatics became fascinating for me because if you're into Louise Hay or anyone that talks about the emotion associated to the body, lymphatics is all about letting go. And it's letting go of what no longer serves you.

[00:06:05] So it was so important for me because I've watched people deal with significant traumas over the years, and we've even done research with the first responders and recognizing that there's more to this system than what we know. Because medically, most people just know that it gets rid of fluid.

[00:06:24] If you've got lymphedema for example, you're moving the fluid out. And that's often how the lymphatic system is considered or managed in our more medical environment. Whereas for me and all my training, understanding the fluid change that occurs in the body when you start moving the lymphatics, that's not only on a physical level, but that's also on an emotional and spiritual.

[00:06:49] We know now more than ever that emotion is stored in cells. Emotions are stored in the fascia. So being able to get things moving, as we say, get you in the flow, it makes a significant difference.

[00:07:02] Luke: And why do you think the lymphatic system is so under acknowledged or appreciated in allopathic medicine?

[00:07:13] Desiree: Probably the main reason is the way we can measure it. We are very limited. We use lymphoscintigraphy, so they have to inject protein dye in, and therefore being able to actually understand if someone has a stuck lymph, it's actually not something you can medically get done easily.

[00:07:32] We see, for example, there's things like thermography. They can see heat patterns, and they can see that. And there's certain tests that people can do now that aren't really what I would say reliable. So it relies more on, I don't know what I don't know scenario with lymphatics. So for example, we may get high performance sports player come in, do lymphatic drainage, and they're on the couch for about a day recovering from the amount of fluid that you shifted because in the interstitial environment there was more going on than they realized, or more lactic acid, etc.

[00:08:06] So I think it comes back to more that we still haven't found a unique way to measure, and therefore people don't really know much about it other than when we get diagnosed with cancer and we have lymph nodes removed. That seems to be the one time people start to understand its function.

[00:08:20] Luke: So when things get really bad, medicine starts to pay attention.

[00:08:24] Desiree: Or you're swelling, or you're dealing with chronic illness. The lymphatic system is the drainage pathway. We need it to drain. No different than you want to flush the toilet and drain away. The same with the lymphatics. It is so pivotal now. And detox has been around for a long time. It's a big craze.

[00:08:46] But no one was thinking about the drainage pathways. So if you detox without thinking about how the lymphatic system's working, then you are virtually recirculating the actual byproduct. And then that's why so many people don't get well.

[00:09:03] Luke: It's like doing a liver cleanse and having your colon not be--

[00:09:09] Desiree: There you go. Yeah.

[00:09:10] Luke: Evacuating.

[00:09:11] Desiree: Yeah.

[00:09:11] Luke: You're like, "Oh, great. We just got it out of the organs, and now we're just soaking it all back up." It's got to do another round of filtration and be stuck again.

[00:09:19] Give us a breakdown in as much detail as you feel like providing, and don't be ever afraid to go into too much nuance and detail because I love that, and I think many people listening do. Give us a whole breakdown on what the lymphatic system is and does.

[00:09:34] Desiree: Well, I think first and foremost, it's part of the circulatory system. So we all know about the vascular is very well researched, covered, and managed. And of course that's feeding the nutrients and the oxygen into the tissue space. And of course, we've got ourselves and I often keep it simple because the analogies people get more, if you think about it, is an aquarium. Think of the cells being the fish.

[00:10:00] They're swimming around really happy in their happy aquarium. But what needs to happen to the aquarium? You need a pump to be able to filtrate that water to clean it. Otherwise, if you are feeding constantly to the fish and they've got waste product, which occurs in our interstitial environment, so our tissue space, then what's happening is over time that water's going to discolor and over time the fish, being the cell, would die.

[00:10:24] So we need this filtration system. So there is over three times more lymph than blood. Many have said in many textbook that if you were to lay it all out the lymphatic system, it would cover three football fields. It's everywhere in our body. We have up to a thousand lymph nodes, which are the powerhouse of immunity where we have lymphocyte activity going on, and there are immune systems.

[00:10:49] So these two systems work together. If your lymphatic fluid is going through into those capillaries to be cleansed by the lymph nodes, that means you're getting the optimal option of purifying that fluid. So what do I want to keep? What do I want to recycle? But more importantly, what do I want to destroy?

[00:11:07] And so it's not only cleansing, but it's also purifying that fluid in the sense of boosting your immune response and increasing lymphocyte activity. And then our gut has 70% immunity in there, or the [Inaudible], as we call it. And so the thing is that we also got these villi that are feeding the fats and proteins back to the heart.

[00:11:30] So my thing is if the lymphatic system is not working efficiently, we are literally building up the junk side of the body. And I think we underestimate it because unlike the heart, it doesn't have a pump. So the heart pumps the blood around. The only way we have the lymph moving-- and the sad reality is it's going against gravity.

[00:11:52] So at least you're going to stand upside down for the rest of your life. You're not going to be able to move it there well. But the main factors are breathing. Well, I'm sure you've done many a podcasts and discussed this, where we don't efficiently breathe correctly so that we can get that deep abdominal breathing.

[00:12:12] Because pretty much from the waist up, you're relying on deep breath to propel it up through what's called the thoracic duct, which is a chamber that runs through the chest and comes into the left subclavian vein where it meets with the heart, and that's when it gets cleansed through the liver, etc.

[00:12:27] So breath is one of them. Movement is the other. But the third one is what we call a lymphangion muscle, and that requires sleep, deep quality sleep. And that's why a lot of people's ankles will go down at night, for example. But we've also got the glymphatic system now. We've finally worked out. We've got this microscopic system that's actually getting rid of soluble proteins and metabolites from the central nervous system.

[00:12:54] Ironically, it's dumping into our cervical nodes. In New Zealand, we call them cervical. I'm not too sure why we have to do it differently. And so for me, just understanding that the impact of draining your lymphatics is cleaning up, mopping up, proving your immune response, but it's also impacting the brain.

[00:13:13] And all these neurological issues we are seeing creeping in around the world is significant. And if we are moving the lymph and we are sleeping up to eight hours, which is what's required to drain the glymphatics more correctly, we're going to have improved quality of health.

[00:13:29] Luke: Do you think in terms of the glymphatic system and the brain washing in the most positive sense, not in the propaganda way-- the physiological brainwashing that takes place when you have the quality and duration of sleep required to do so, have you seen any research or any anecdotal evidence to support this idea of incline sleeping, where you're sleeping with your head a bit higher?

[00:13:55] Desiree: So I haven't seen a lot. I think the glymphatic system still really is being challenged at the moment because a lot of it's been done more in mice and animals, etc., rather than humans, and it's really hard to study. So when we put someone in Flowpresso, we do do an incline.

[00:14:14] Because the minute you start moving lymph, it's like that horrible sensation when your sinuses start to drain and it starts to fall into the back of the throat. So slight elevation will always improve lymphatic drainage of the head and face area. So it's important for me as far as I'm concerned, even if we don't have the research to back it.

[00:14:33] Luke: I ask for a couple reasons. I've heard some pretty convincing, supporting evidence that sleeping in that way is beneficial because of this issue. It's easier for things to move around if you're letting gravity help you. However, we had this bed called a Samina sleep system, this very super uber, uber natural bed.

[00:14:56] And they come like that. It's four inches higher on the head of the bed. And so when we moved in this house, I got one of those, and Alyson really didn't like that. Well, she didn't like a lot of things about the bed, but that was one of them. So I chopped two inches off the incline and made it only two inches higher at the head.

[00:15:15] And she still hated it. And I thought it was just because she didn't like the style of mattress. It's not as cushy as a latex mattress or something. So anyway, we got a new bed frame, and we're going to get an Essentia mattress, which are really cozy, beautiful, and a normal, healthy mattress.

[00:15:35] And so I put a couple of blocks under the new bed frame and just didn't really think to ask her, even though-- I'm a little thickheaded-- she had mentioned she hated it. But I just thought, ah, no. She probably just didn't like the other part of it. She won't even notice. It's only an inch or two.

[00:15:51] Put it under there, and one day she comes out super pissed. Oh, she's like, "Dude, I told you I hated that incline thing." And I said, "No, I think it's good for you." She said, "I don't give a shit. I don't believe in that. My sleep's horrible." So I took it out, of course. And she's been sleeping much better. So for her it didn't work.

[00:16:07] I feel like I didn't really notice it, but it has always made sense to me in a very kind of simplistic way that you're allowing the fluids of the body to move, especially from the brain, easier if you're tipped up a little bit.

[00:16:21] Desiree: Well, the research I saw was more lying on your left side.

[00:16:25] Luke: Oh, interesting.

[00:16:26] Desiree: Because all lymph ends up in the left subclavian. We have what we call watersheds. They run down the center of the body waistline. So the right side is only right chest, breast, down halfway to the waistline drains to the right subclavian, and then it'll track over to go to the left.

[00:16:47] All the rest of your body is going into that left subclavian. So that's why they say, to lie on the left side, because, and it has been shown that that does improve lymphatic drainage, but also for the brain as well.

[00:17:01] Luke: What side do you sleep on?

[00:17:02] Desiree: I sleep on my right.

[00:17:03] Luke: You do?

[00:17:04] Desiree: A lot. I actually consciously start on my left in the hope, but I always wake up on my right.

[00:17:10] Luke: That's funny. I'm the opposite. I can barely sleep on my right side. Left side is always how I fall asleep.

[00:17:16] Desiree: I put it down to my husband snoring though. Maybe I'm just rolling--

[00:17:19] Luke: You're trying to get away. That's hilarious. Okay, cool. I forgot that I even wanted to ask you about that incline sleeping thing. Because it's a very niche practice, and so there's not a lot of hard evidence to support it. But the few people that are advocates of that incline sleeping are really into it. And so I think their enthusiasm is caught onto me at times. But it's over in this house, so I guess I don't need to worry about it.

[00:17:46] How is the lymphatic system related to immune health?

[00:17:52] Desiree: So they basically work together. So as I said earlier, within those lymphatic capillaries, you've got circulating lymphocytes throughout the whole body. Your main immune organs are your thymus, which we used to tap in the days gone by to wake it up. And there's some research to say it got smaller when you got older. It was bigger when you were younger.

[00:18:16] But I think they're progressing on that. You've got the spleen, which is another one. You've obviously got your appendix, which we lovingly always took out, but now we realize-- Duke University, I think, was the first to say that it's actually a powerhouse of probiotics. And then you've got obviously the tonsils, which again seem to be something that was common to have removed, but they're realizing now to leave in.

[00:18:39] And then you've got what's even called Peyer's patches, which is these immune cells within the small intestine. And we usually have around about 20, but they've got B and T cells. So the B cells are the ones that create the antibodies. The T cells are the one that's the immune response.

[00:18:55] I always call it the general, the one that's sending everyone into fire. And then, of course, you've got things like NK cells, which is your natural killer cells. You've got so much going on within the immune system. So those two are linked. And the research, for example, in my world, which is lymphatic drainage, is when you increase lymphatic drainage, you increase lymphocyte activity.

[00:19:17] Now, could it be that it's because you're circulating fluids? Yes. Could it be that you're actually moving the byproducts so the inflammatory markers are coming down? Yes. So there's a number of reasons. And then you're pushing more fluid through the lymph nodes so they can do more cleansing, processing, and eliminating.

[00:19:33] And of course those lymph nodes, let us go back to those, they are where there is an absolute large hub. So I think in cancer, for example, if someone comes in in my clinic and would say, "I had three lymph nodes and one was involved," I'm going, "Great. It didn't get to the other two. That's fantastic."

[00:19:53] Because it's a pathway that it will travel on often. And so they are there to try and circumvent anything from progressing, just like our glands go up when we get a cold. They swell. They're actually trying to do their job to efficiently help form an immune response.

[00:20:10] Luke: I like that perspective because we think of some of these responses in the body as symptoms that we need to treat or get rid of. Meanwhile, the body's going, "No, dumb ass. I'm trying to help you. That's why your lymph glands are swollen. I'm doing my job. Relax." I think it's just hard for us to sit with discomfort sometimes. So we want to suppress these symptoms even though it's the body's innate healing capacity at work.

[00:20:36] Desiree: Yeah. The greatest thing we can do when we've got that kind of thing occurring is, again, coming back to the greatest way to shift the lymphatics, is through parasympathetic response. So downregulating the stress response and putting you into that. That's why we wrap up in a blanket and try to increase our body temperature, so it can create a natural fever.

[00:20:58] And then you're trying to actually create the rest. You need the rest for the body so it can do what it's here to do. But we try to get on with life, keep doing, take 100 pills, put everything on us, and do a lot of biohacking and/or tech work, but the thing is, your body needs that time to create the antibodies.

[00:21:18] If we just think of it that way, you want the body to know how to save you from having that same discomfort again. Because part of the process of our immune response is to work out, what is this foreign entity? Do I create an antibody so I can protect you from it again? Or is it self-made? And that's one of the things I find the greatest challenge with cancer, is we make those cells.

[00:21:41] And so it's really an immune disruption that's going on that the body's not recognizing that something's happening. And that's been from my experience of observing, watching how much stressed people are around the time of that diagnosis. And if you think of the cells generating, it's that kind of mouse on the wheel going chichichi, and the cells just keep producing. Well, we need to put people back into some parasympathetic autonomic regulation rather than dysregulation.

[00:22:10] The lymphatics kicks in, the drainage pathways open, you've got an increased immune response, and that's where I go, "Sometimes we're just missing this link over and over again of the importance of this role that it can play."

[00:22:24] Luke: That makes sense. If you're given a diagnosis like that, you're probably going to go into fight or flight, depending on your temperament and your ability to roll with life's punches. But I imagine your average person's probably going to have the shock and awe panic phase of that, where they are going to go totally sympathetic, and probably lose sleep, and be worrying, all of that kind of thing, go limbic system, stuck mode, which isn't going to then, according to you, allow the lymphatic system to inform the immune system to actually go solve the problem. So it's sort of self-perpetuating in that way.

[00:23:00] Desiree: Yeah.

[00:23:01] Luke: That's very interesting. What about this practice of hyperthermia? Are you familiar with that as one of these alternative treatments or adjunct treatments for cancer? Does that have anything to do with a lymphatic system?

[00:23:14] Desiree: Yes and no. Hyperthermia for me was always about trying to give you and put you into that natural temperature, build up the body. In my experience, in the last 20 years, when I was in clinic, not so much now because busy dealing with the company, but so many people's basal temp was very low. So that's the temperature you do on rising.

[00:23:36] And a lot of women especially too, you find they're very cold and that lower abdomen, buttock area, which, again, causes illness, stagnation issues associated to that. So hypothermia, especially when it comes to cancer, was used very progressively to be able to try induce a fever, which is our natural way.

[00:23:57] I was old-school when I raised my children. You gave pain med when they were really uncomfortable and suffering, but you allowed the fever. You monitored it closely. I would sleep with the children to make sure that they could live through that fever so that we could actually kill off the viruses or the cancer cells, etc., that was there. So I think there's merit there. They now do it under controlled, even with chemotherapy. They're doing a number of different ways.

[00:24:25] Luke: Oh, really?

[00:24:25] Desiree: Yeah. And especially over in Europe.

[00:24:28] Luke: Interesting. And just to clarify for those listening, I said hyperthermia, not hypothermia.

[00:24:33] Desiree: Oh, sorry.

[00:24:34] Luke: No, no, no. You got it. You know what I meant? But I just realized, I was like, if I said it quickly, it might've sounded like, yeah, you get really cold. No, we're talking about they wrap you in a bunch of heating blankets and you sweat your ass off and think you're going die, kind of thing. It's a pretty extreme treatment.

[00:24:46] Desiree: It's very extreme what they do. And then you're constantly monitored. But I have seen clients that they've gone overseas to do it.

[00:24:55] Luke: Right. Because it's one of those things the FDA probably isn't crazy about.

[00:24:59] Desiree: Yeah. So I haven't heard of it here in the US so much. Being based in New Zealand, you're hearing a lot of around what's going on in the world, and it's predominantly over in Europe that we see that one being administered.

[00:25:10] Luke: So in my admittedly limited understanding of the lymphatic system, a couple things that I've heard that are good for it would be skin brushing. When I take my saunas, I have a-- this company, HigherDOSE, makes a great little skin brush with copper bristles.

[00:25:29] Desiree: Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:30] Luke: At first, it felt very sensitive, and I could barely do it. And now I just grind that thing up and down my body. And I don't know if I'm going the right direction. Maybe you could speak to that. And then the other thing, you mentioned movement, obviously. But I've heard bouncing up and down. So I've had a Bellicon rebounder for years, and I jump around on that a little bit at least every day.

[00:25:51] But I think last time you were here, I might be mistaken, but I think you said with the rebounder that in terms of the direct impact on the lymphatic system that we're looking for, you don't want to actually get air and jump up and down. You just want to gently bounce on it.

[00:26:07] Desiree: Yeah. You want to pulse on it. So you want to keep at least one foot connected to the mat. And there is [Inaudible] out there that were specifically designed with 36 spring that were part of NASA and everything. This is how it all came about. And it is about pulsing if you want to work with the lymphatics. If you want to jump up and down, that's more exercise in my world. But you've got your vibration plates now that you can get.

[00:26:32] Luke: Yeah, I've got two of those.

[00:26:34] Desiree: Yeah. And I always go, be a little bit careful with those because they're rattling your bones. You don't want that. You want it to create a movement, and you also want to be mindful you don't overdo it.

[00:26:43] So normally most times on a rebounder or a plate, a vibration plate, we would only do 10 minutes because you can actually create a lot of change in that short period of time, and you want your body to know what to do with it and to be able to absorb those fluids and shift them. And some people do-- can even get a herx response from just doing the 10 minutes a day. Dry skin brushing, it is natural bristle all the time. Don't just grab any brush. It doesn't work.

[00:27:10] Luke: What do you think about the copper bristles?

[00:27:11] Desiree: As long as you're not scrubbing yourself like you're trying to have a shower.

[00:27:16] Luke: Okay.

[00:27:16] Desiree: Just so you know.

[00:27:18] Luke: So a lighter touch would actually be--

[00:27:19] Desiree: Yeah. It's more to create that tingling-- you know when someone rubs their fingers across your skin and you get that tingle feel. You want to be able to create a lovely pink color.

[00:27:30] Luke: Okay.

[00:27:31] Desiree: But not a very dark red color. That's the difference. Because the lymphatics, predominantly 75% of it is surface lymphatics. So what that means is it's just sitting in under the skin. So you don't have to go deep, because that's where then you're going into muscle.

[00:27:47] So the idea is to always sweep towards the heart if you're nothing else. And always think of what we call proximal to distal, which means that if I've got a pathway I am trying to open, I don't start-- if you think of a toll booth, you're not the car at the back pushing forward.

[00:28:04] You want to start with the very first car in the front. So what that means is you would start up at the terminus, which is above the collarbone, and then you'd work your way down to the feet. Whereas a lot of people start at the feet.

[00:28:14] Luke: That's what I do. I start at the feed. Dammit.

[00:28:17] Desiree: Yeah. It's just so that I'm trying to open each pathway to get the fluid to open. So then it will draw a fluid towards it, and then that way you get a better response. And we always do pre-shower because that's slotting the dead cells. We get in, and your skin just feels amazing for doing it as well. But you're also getting the lymphatic circulation.

[00:28:36] Luke: We just changed my dry skin brushing routine significantly because I was doing it totally wrong. Really hard. Starting at the feet. Dammit. Okay, now I know. Now I know. And now everyone listening knows. In terms of the vibration plates, I have two of them. One of is called Vibeplate, and it's like a stretching rack, you can put it on and do pull-ups while you're vibrating and do a little yoga and stuff. It's quite nice. And then I have one in the garage that is the old Bulletproof one that's very strong.

[00:29:08] Desiree: Yes.

[00:29:09] Luke: And I've always felt pretty good on those. But then I saw something recently, as we do. It was an Instagram reel or something, and they were talking about, if you're on a vibration plate and it's not the right frequency, that your brain experiences it as a bunch of micro concussions. Do you know anything about that? Because then I was like, "Oh God."

[00:29:30] Desiree: Yeah. So that's where they've realized the intensity now. These older ones that we used to do, they used to get you doing exercise on all crazy things. We had them in New Zealand as well, but they were too intense. They were literally rattling your bones and your brain.

[00:29:43] So you do have to be careful that you are just getting a slight vibration, around that 35. I think 35 hertz to 60 hertz is enough, but anything over that, it's just too intense for the body. And it will because your brain will be shaking around, and that's where there'll be the concern that you're going to go on and have other issues because you were trying to do lymph, but you ended up with other problems because of the intensity of the actual vibration.

[00:30:10] Luke: Yeah, something to be mindful of. I remember years ago there was this device, I think it was from Korea, called a TurboSonic. Have you seen these? It's a vibration technology, but rather than having a vibrating motor, like the mechanical ones I'm describing, it's actually a giant subwoofer.

[00:30:30] Desiree: Oh, wow.

[00:30:30] Luke: And so it's sound vibration, and it has a really wide range from like weee to bababa. So it's got this dial, and you could run these different programs on it. And that one to me always felt much more gentle, and it would run you through the different frequencies, depending on what setting you pick that you're working on. But I never felt like, oh, this is hurting my head or anything like that, because it's a different kind of experience when it's just moving sound waves versus an actual vibrating motor that's bouncing up and down quickly.

[00:31:04] Desiree: Yeah. It will be because frequency now, I think we're going to see more and more. I think there will be more and more vibration, but it'll be done in a different way. I'm certainly looking into a lot of different ideas at the moment around vibration because if you can create that gentle movement throughout the body where it's like that ripple you think of when you throw a stone in water and it creates that ripple effect.

[00:31:26] If you can create that ripple being that we're mainly predominantly made up of water, you can create quite a significant shift in the intracellular as well as extracellular matrix of the cells. So for me, I think we are going to see more of vibration, sound, and vibration done in a particular hertz so that you're actually getting this done correctly. Whereas in the past it was all about let's just shake you.

[00:31:52] Luke: Brute force.

[00:31:52] Desiree: Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:54] Luke: Well, after learning that about the brain, I have changed my protocol a bit. I find it doesn't seem to hit the brain if your body is more relaxed and you've got some bend in your knees. And I'll even do squats on it, things like that. It seems like if you stand up straight, that vibration is going from the soles of your feet, and you can feel it hitting your head if you're too rigid and erect and the way you're standing. The more you slouch and move around, it gets dissipated by the time it hits your head. That's what I've noticed.

[00:32:28] Desiree: Yeah, definitely. No, I would agree. We do have people that sit on them mainly because they find the standings too intense. Again, you've got to be thinking about that intensity of the vibration, because even more so it's gone straight up through that spine, and then it will actually impact on the head as well. But yeah, you're not supposed to have what I call locked knees when you're on a vibration plate. There is supposed to be that soft stance and then the whole body's getting-- you want to feel all your bits wiggle.

[00:32:58] Luke: Yeah.

[00:32:58] Desiree: You want to feel it all, not just your--

[00:33:01] Luke: We know what you mean. Wink, wink.

[00:33:01] Desiree: Straight up through the center.

[00:33:03] Luke: Yeah. I'm glad we covered this because the Vibeplate, big cage thing I have is much more gentle, and it also has variable speed, so you can select the hertz. And when I've been on that, because the other one I have in the garage is so much stronger, I'd be like, "Ah, is this really doing anything? It's not that strong." So I feel better now--

[00:33:20] Desiree: This is more--

[00:33:21] Luke: Using that one that. More is more does not really apply when you're vibrating the body.

[00:33:27] Desiree: And when you think about manual drainage, it's a soft, gentle technique. It's very directed. It's not. And most people will go, "Oh, how on that is that going to ever do anything for me?" And then they come away and go, 24 hours, "I knew you'd definitely done something." And so that's why you've got to be thinking about where the lymphatic system sits, and you don't need excessive force to move it.

[00:33:50] Luke: Got it. Or excessive skin brushing.

[00:33:53] Desiree: There you go.

[00:33:54] Luke: Let's talk about the detox pathways. I think this is a really important distinction because as you said, there is a very positive trend that we're becoming aware that our environment, the things we eat, breathe, drink, etc., are just full of poison.

[00:34:06] Unfortunately, so many of us are like, "Ah, I get it out." And we might have hack some reactions if we do it too quickly or too aggressively, and it's problematic, detox in general,. So you hear people creating all these different systems and programs by which to do so. But it seems to me, to your point earlier, that if you're moving these toxins from one place in the body to another, that we really need to have the channels to get them out of the body open.

[00:34:36] So maybe give us the deep dive on how the lymph and things like your technology, the Flowpresso, I said it right this time, can assist in that process and maybe the potential risks and just willy-nilly detoxing the body when it's not willing to let go of what you're trying to get rid of.

[00:34:57] Desiree: Yeah. We have four ways of eliminating. So we've got obviously, bowel, kidney, all your own. We've got breath, and that's always a good indicator if your breath's not great that there's something going on. And then we've got sweat. So that's how if we go backwards, and we'll go to how it would end, and then we'll move our way back.

[00:35:16] And then, of course, you've got the liver that would be doing a lot of the cleansing and processing. So the liver does need support. You do need to have regular bowel motions. You need to be keeping good quality water going through the body. I use the terrible analogy because it's the only way I can get people to drink water.

[00:35:32] Men keep telling me there's water in beer, or there's water and coffee. And I'm like, "Not quite the analogy I'm trying to make here." You flush the toilet to get rid of the byproduct. Same thing. We need water. So for us to improve, you've got those systems that definitely need help. And I see we've had many people come through our clinic that just bowel motions alone were every five days.

[00:35:57] It was horrific to even think about how that was even being managed. But people, I don't think-- how many doctors go, "How many times do you have the toilet every day?" They don't ask you. They don't. I stopped saying, "Are you regular?" Because people would say yes, because it was their regular.

[00:36:16] Luke: Yeah. Once a week.

[00:36:17] Desiree: Exactly. And so for me that's the important thing about we've got to make sure that those systems are functioning first and foremost. And then with the lymphatic systems coming in, it's taking everything out of that cellular environment, that interstitial environment.

[00:36:32] So all those fluids that your cells are bathing in right now, it's responsible for moving that. So if I take a whole lot of detox pills or do a program, and I'm not considering a poop, pee breath, and skin, if I'm not using those or I'm not eliminating correctly in that, then what happens is the body's basically holding back from eliminating.

[00:36:57] Then you've got the lymphatic system trying to manage all this stuff coming in. Because it'll come through via the vascular, the gut, and it'll be circulating in. So you're starting to create what I call a soup of environment, where you're just not getting rid of it. And I think that's where people need to understand that the lymphatic system, you may look great, physically fit, all the rest, but that's not always the case when it comes to the lymphatics.

[00:37:22] It's like, for example, you might have a shoulder injury. That will straight away impede the lymphatics on that side of the body. You may have lower back issues. Again, you're impeding all around the inguinal, which is lymph nodes in the groin.

[00:37:36] You may have had a surgery. The scars are the worst. Any scar will impede the lymphatic system in some form or another. So there's all these other aspects that can impact on the lymphatics that people don't necessarily consider through the process. And I just think it's one of those really important things to consider, that it is literally the waste system of the body. It is trying to remove everything around those cells to help your body improve mitochondria, DNA, etc.

[00:38:06] Luke: Well, when you think about one of the things that you said earlier that there's three times the amount of lymphatic fluid than there is blood in your body, that alone got my attention because that means, well, it must be meaningful. Nature didn't create it that way, just we got some extra fluid. We don't know what to do with. Let's just throw it in there.

[00:38:26] It obviously serves a really vital purpose. Maybe some of the issue, as you said earlier is that there isn't an instant test to see how it's working, so it's probably difficult to identify when a dysfunctional lymphatic system is the root cause or one of the main root causes of any issues you're having. It seems to be difficult to diagnose.

[00:38:51] Desiree: Yeah. And the vascular system, we blame it all on the lymphatics when things go wrong, but it's often the vascular system that's the issue. So the capillaries leak and they leak what they call blood plasma protein into the tissue space. Now, if the lymphatics system does not pick that up and return it back to our blood system, we would literally die within 48 hours.

[00:39:16] So it's really important to understand, and the only system that can return those plasma proteins is the lymphatics. So there's even that going on in the background that we don't even realize. So often when there's a lymphatic issue, there is a vascular issue going on as well. There's some leaking going on in the capillaries that's causing this too.

[00:39:34] And that's why, for example, if you have lymphedema, from any cancer, you've had lymph nodes removed. Yes, that's playing a part. But also, for me, there has to be a vascular issue as well going on. And a lot of people have gone through chemoradiation. It all impacts on the way these capillaries are working.

[00:39:57] And so you've got to start getting a problem in the tissue. And so you have all this leaking going on and then therefore the lymphatic system has to take it out and move it away for you. So that's one of the reasons Flowpresso came about, was, a, it's tough out there to find many manual lymphatic drainage therapists that are very well trained.

[00:40:20] There is such a shortage of them in the world, to be honest. And so part of the drive was a doctor going, come on, "You must be able to create something for me." And I'm kind of looking at the whole time going, "You got to be mad. I'm not a med tech person. I've never developed anything in my life. I just work on bodies."

[00:40:38] But part of it was, that was the reason we put heat in. And because I wanted to create vasodilation, I wanted to create, improve circulation blood flow, get the heat into the body, bring that core body temp up, coming back to your hyperthermia. I'm not cooking someone to be uncomfortable.

[00:40:55] I'm more warming them up, warming their core body, temp up so I can improve circulation so that then when we are doing the sequential compression, we're able to then move that lymph and change the consistency of it. Because it's supposed to be a little bit like skim milk, but it can end up a bit more thicker, like cottage cheese. It can actually change its texture.

[00:41:16] So you want to be able to keep getting things circulating, and therefore when we circulate and we move, we've got now nutrient increase, decrease more importantly of inflammation, and then the body can start to really recover and uptake the product they're taking up. We've seen that time and time again where people have found that their supplements, they're actually noticing a different intake.

[00:41:40] Or if they're on medication, they're having to have it reduced. Because their body's able to uptake now differently because it's more pure or cleansed, so it's not dealing with as much inflammation. So then we can actually improve how the body's absorbing as well.

[00:41:57] Luke: Interesting, interesting. For those listening, oftentimes when someone's created something, we will have our little display table here, and we have a couple of your small devices here. But for those listening, could you describe the Flowpresso system? What I remember is there was some compressor generator component, and then you put on this full body suit, this Michelin man suit, and the machine goes on. And it was like a wave experience of pressure moving through the body, a four-handed massage or something like that, with the warmth as you indicated.

[00:42:38] So that was my experience of it, but I couldn't draw it for you right now. I'd have to go to your website and go, "Yeah, that's the thing. That's the thing." So maybe describe what this is and what makes it different than just someone doing great body work on you or something like that, or even a human lymphatic drainage specialist.

[00:42:57] Desiree: I still want to disclaim because that's my background too, is that there is times you do need a well-trained lymphatic therapist. Especially post-surgery or anything that's been major we need to isolate where is the buildup, where is the environment now that's under stress from that surgery?

[00:43:17] So your auxiliary nodes, which are in your armpit built up. Have we got a stagnation around there? That kind of thing. So the suit came in more as a general overall. So there's a compression, like you said, a controller unit, that delivers the compression and heat, and we plug in what we call a mattress, which is just something that lays over the massage table that holds and houses all the cords.

[00:43:39] And then you have a set that goes on your feet. We have a compression chamber that hits the base of the foot, so the planter, because when you're walking, that's pumping lymph as well. And then we have it around the ankle. And then we have four different chambers in the leg.

[00:43:54] We have two in the abdomen as well, or around the torso, so down in the lower back and the upper around the rib area, just below the xiphoid process. And then we have a back piece, and that's designed to bring the shoulders up because so many people suffer from so much stress in their shoulders these days that it was really to hone in on that subscapular area.

[00:44:14] And then we have two compression chambers in the arms. And so what you're describing, the way, which is a perfect way to put it, it is a sequential. So lymphatics have one-way valves up through each of their capillaries. We call them capillaries. You call them capillaries. And so the idea is that when the surge comes through, these valves open and they go into the next chamber.

[00:44:38] So if you're moving fluid, the last thing you want to do is let go, until you've been able to create the propulsion, the propelling of that fluid into the next chamber. So that's why they overlap as well. So there's a very specific way to be able to get that fluid up. And part of putting the technology where we had compression in the back was so that we could lift up and pump that thoracic up through the center of the chest.

[00:45:00] Because we don't have it over the chest because people tend to feel anxiety when they've held down across that chest wall area. And so then by delivering the heat and the compression, we are literally trying to move-- a little bit like Freddy always uses the analogy, a toothpaste. We're literally squeezing the toothpaste out of the tube to be able to bring the fluids up to where we want them to meet with those subclavian veins and then go to the heart. And then you can process through the liver and eliminate accordingly.

[00:45:29] We do have two modes in this technology. That one, which I just talked about, is what we call more around the lymphatics. We also have one we call sports mode, which is a full body isometric. It's the only way to explain it. So it's a compress. It starts with the feet again, hold, hold, all the way up the body, and then a full body release.

[00:45:48] Once it's done quite a hold for about 5 to 10 seconds, great for moving the fascia, great for getting blood flow really increase. So sports people tend to love it. It's very good for performance recovery. It's like you just come in and you go out completely different. Because it's like getting a full body reset, the whole flush. Everything starts to move.

[00:46:09] And in clinical care we often use that more if someone's dealing with more of a health issue. Probably weight loss is a really good analogy to give you. When someone's trying to lose weight, they're doing everything right, they're still following the program, but all of a sudden they stop losing weight, it's like they're stuck. This is when we'd put them in mode two. Because it's a bit of a push. It's like, "Come on, let's change the body's behavior."

[00:46:33] And sometimes you need that even in-- I've dealt with trauma cases and everything because this thing does feel like you're being wrapped up, loved, and hugged. We get everything from first responders through to sports people saying, "God, I just feel like I've been hugged all over," which if we change that into explaining what that means in a more of a medical, I think it's the deep pressure therapy, it's like having that weighted blanket on, but it's warm.

[00:46:57] You're cozy. There's a sense of safety, so you let go. And so in trauma situations, we do it mode one, but sometimes that mode two is actually to be held so tight, so strong, just like you do with often autistic kids. You hold them really tight and then they relax, because there's a sense of safety. And that's also where mode two can be very beneficial.

[00:47:21] Luke: Well, that speaks to the parasympathetic element. You want the body to be relaxed if you want things to move inside. You could just picture the contraction that you feel when you're emotionally charged. You can feel your body get tense. It's just a natural physiological response.

[00:47:38] Desiree: Yeah.

[00:47:39] Luke: So it makes sense that it would be so. And that was a great description of that. That's like, "Oh yeah, I remember that. I remember that." What was it like for you as someone with no experience in, I'm assuming engineering, product design, and so on, just having--

[00:47:56] Desiree: It was challenging.

[00:47:57] Luke: Passion and knowledge. Yeah. I'm curious about your journey of like, are you drawing something, or are you hiring a number of different people to help with the design? You know what you're going for, but you don't know necessarily how to make it. So walk me through that process.

[00:48:12] Desiree: Yeah. So I turned into a mad scientist in a basement. Literally, I went into my basement in my property, got a whole lot of different tech that was already out there. I was hoping I could find something that I could just plug and play, but it wasn't that easy. And of course then not only do you have to come up with-- so I found a couple of tech that I could at least get the concept so we could start getting air compressions pretty general.

[00:48:39] There's not a lot of science, as in, it's not complicated to get air compression systems. Not many had heat, so that was a challenge that I had to come across. And so I started working with one company initially, and I created this prototype, and I brought it here to the States because that's where my three different colleagues were prepared to test it.

[00:48:59] And at the time I'm so embarrassed about this thing. I look back now-- I've kept it just to remind me where I've come-- and the cables were really bad. The connections would break. It's funny now. And so long story short, you go through the process of going, is this working? Have I got the concept right?

[00:49:21] I wasn't even leaving the US, and I was getting these incredible videos of testimonials from people crying after 25 years of Lyme, not being able to feel okay, and then feeling great for the first time since then right through to, we were seeing changes in heart rate variability, which comes back to the deep pressure. And so I had to go back, and I had to then find suppliers. I had to work with different companies, engineers, to see if I could get the sequential bit right.

[00:49:50] That was what was really important to me. We can always adjust the technology or the pieces, for example. You can allow for that. But that sequential was a lot of time. No, that's not right. We need to adjust it now. We need to do it this. And that's where it really was tough there for a little while.

[00:50:07] And then, of course, everyone was learning about the old tech and wanted to buy this. And so I'm so grateful for the three people that supported me over here because they went on and started selling the new one before it was even launched. And I think our first shipment came in, and we had pre-sold it all.

[00:50:27] And this is the first time these three people even got to see it, and they're like going, "Oh, thank goodness. This is even way better." So that was a moment where I was like, "Oh, thank goodness we've got it right." But then the problem we had is we launched February, 2020 to have our whole country shut down in March.

[00:50:44] Luke: Oh.

[00:50:45] Desiree: So that created another whole group of issues. But there's always a silver lining, right? And six months later I happened to mention I was doing some studies with the cardiac clinic there, and we were noticing these improvements to sleep and these improvements to stress, anxiety, and heart rate variability. It was making a significant, adjusting someone out of sympathetic into parasympathetic.

[00:51:09] And I happened to mention there was a critical incident in New Zealand in our local area with police, and I got contacted by the local welfare office, and they said, "Look, we want to put this guy in. He doesn't want counseling, but we've heard about this tech. Could we put him in?" I said, "Sure."

[00:51:27] Well, he went back and said it was incredible. So I met with the wellness team, and very long story short, we went into our initial pilot trial. We had 19 police officers ranging from-- we call them AOS. You call them SWAT. Right through to frontline. And we started testing that.

[00:51:45] Could we change heart rate variability? Could we improve blood pressure? Could we change fatigue? Could we change stress, anxiety, and sleep? We got a yes all the way through-- significant changes. So then we had the opportunity to turn that into a 135-candidate group. And these were police officers, male, females, different locations, so smaller communities, large communities, from the AOS, as I said, right through to the child support people through to the frontline.

[00:52:15] And so, of course, that creates a whole lot of variables. It's challenging when this one system is all that's available, and we are relying on them. Got no involvement in what they sleep, what they eat, what they drink, what they behave, blah, blah, blah, and what incidences they were managing at the time.

[00:52:33] And of course, this is when, I don't know if you remember, but New Zealand got put through where we were ostracized if you weren't vaccinated. So what happened is that that created a whole lot of upheaval. So of course the police were trying to manage that, and so it's a really stressful time. But out of that 135, we end up with a 91% improvement of sleep. Now, this is one session a week of 40 minutes for three weeks. We had up to 62% change in stress and a 53% change in anxiety.

[00:53:06] Luke: Incredible.

[00:53:07] Desiree: And that's why the value of being deep pressure held safe and given an environment for 40 minutes where you can let go, allow your body to do what it needs to do. In other words, whether it's lymphatic drainage or whether it's just going into parasympathetic, to get those results, that's what came out of the plus for me of being stuck in New Zealand and I couldn't travel, was I was able to learn all these other things that this technology was doing. I probably would never have had an opportunity. It would've just been purely a lymphatic drainage technology.

[00:53:41] Luke: Wow. I love your attitude there, the silver lining. There's always one, even if it takes you a while to find it.

[00:53:48] Desiree: Yes. Sometimes it's challenging.

[00:53:49] Luke: With Flowpresso, this is something that would be used by a practitioner, so people listening that are like, "Oh, wow. This is cool. I want to get one of those." This isn't something that's like a consumer product. This is a practitioner product. So how would one find a practitioner? Are there a lot of them in the US by now, or it is it difficult to come by?

[00:54:13] Desiree: Yeah. So we are a class II medical device. We were approved by FDA, so that was a big tick for us. It just shows that we're prepared to put the time into all the safety and the challenges that they can create, which was quite challenging because I end up taking the lead in it March last year after about a year and a half with an agency and got us through after.

[00:54:36] You'd like to think I knew what the tech was so I could answer it. So that meant that now they are licensed healthcare practitioners. So chiropractors, your medical doctors, but also estheticians can use technology. So can acupuncturists, those kind of things. And so I think there's over 400 clinics here in the US now. So we're still taking off. I still think I'm a startup, even though I'm four years in only because of the limit of travel.

[00:55:04] Luke: That's a lot though considering what happened in 2020 that stymied your launch and your potential for growth.

[00:55:11] Desiree: Delayed us two years.

[00:55:13] Luke: That's quite a lot.

[00:55:14] Desiree: Yeah. And so we do on our website have a location map. Not all our clinics are up there because some of them have certain in-house programs, so you have to go and do the whole program. You just can't turn up and do Flowpresso. But the ones that do, and if not, they can always reach out to our team because one thing we've learned in New Zealand is that you can be in a different state, and it's shorter to drive to another state to get to a Flowpresso than what it is within your state.

[00:55:41] Luke: Right. Depending on where you are in the state. Yeah. Like if you're in Texas and you're on one of the edges, it's definitely going to be closer than trying to get to Dallas, Austin, or something. You can dip into Arkansas or whatever else is close by. New Mexico, I think is another one.

[00:55:57] Desiree: Yeah.

[00:55:58] Luke: Okay. So we're going to put the show notes for this one at lukestorey.com/flowpresso, P-R-E-S-S-O, and then your website is flowpressousa.com. We'll put all that clickable in the show description. When someone's doing a Flowpresso treatment with a practitioner, is it usually advise that they're taking some binders or taking a sauna afterward?

[00:56:26] What happens if somebody's really toxic and now we're moving it around and we're opening up these pathways and we don't have anything to catch it and get it out of the body? What are the other adjunct in terms of detox protocols?

[00:56:40] Desiree: Yeah, so a binder is great. Now, just to note, you are fully clothed in this because we don't want you to sweat in the suit for starters. And that creates another barrier of security. But definitely a binder does help significantly. We've noticed that that will make electrolytes, being well hydrated.

[00:57:02] Because you will find the people that aren't will be incredibly thirsty for about 24 hours afterwards. Because we've done some studies. It's a technology called SOZO, S-O-Z, we say Z, Z-O. And it's an impedance unit that's often used in hospitals to measure L-Dex of the lymphedema.

[00:57:21] But I've got the one that also does quadrants. I can tell the difference between your right arm to your left arm, right leg to left leg, but it's also telling me intracellular, extracellular fluid. And we've only done a small study at this point. We're going to do a bigger one, but to date we've noticed there's about a 2% change from extracellular to intracellular.

[00:57:40] So we're pushing fluid into the cell, which is what we want fundamentally. Most people's if you look at the health issues, a lot of people are in the extracellular. So we know we push your fluids around. So being well hydrated, using electrolytes afterwards, a binder if you are-- not even if you are unwell. It's more that if you need help to take out-- if you would be dealing with any sort of toxicity, which as you said earlier, is probably all of us with the environment right now. I notice a significant difference coming here to the US to my skin and everything just being here.

[00:58:14] Luke: Really?

[00:58:15] Desiree: Yeah. Oh, a huge difference. And I have to hydrate a lot more. I get very dehydrated here. And I know it's hot here, but even in New Zealand when it's that hot, I'm not dealing as such. The water's different. The food's different. We were at Freddy's last night, and we had a steak, and I was horrified to see how much you pay for a piece of steak here in the US. And we are still grass-fed.

[00:58:38] Luke: Yeah.

[00:58:38] Desiree: So you've got to be mindful of what you're eating all the time here too. Plays a big part [Inaudible].

[00:58:44] Luke: I wonder if the part of that dehydration effect is just the ubiquitous radiation in the environment. The number of cell towers here, it's insane.

[00:58:56] Desiree: Well my battery in New Zealand goes flat on my phone quite quickly throughout the day here because it's not having to draw to find 5G everywhere. I can have a full battery almost the whole day.

[00:59:08] Luke: Because it's fully connected. I think that has a lot to do with-- if you think about how you cure meat to preserve meat, you smoke it and dry it out. You want to get the moisture out of it, and that's the radiation from the fire. The radiation in our environment works in a similar way. It's very dehydrating.

[00:59:26] Desiree: Yeah.

[00:59:27] Luke: It might have something to do with that.

[00:59:29] Desiree: And it depends again on our practitioners. Obviously you have to be licensed to recommend certain things here in the United States. But at the end of the day, the hydration and the binders are key. And then based on what the clinic can offer, then they may recommend other things.

[00:59:47] But as a company we obviously have to be very careful what we suggest. And then therefore, other than those two, I just stick with those because they're safe. Because then people don't do things that they shouldn't.

[01:00:00] Luke: Yeah, yeah. I know it's always tricky with the medical claims issue. Oftentimes when I have these conversations with people before and after the mics are on, tell me all of these incredible results people are getting with this and with that. I'm like, "Ah, I wish we could talk about it."

[01:00:16] And I understand there's some regulations that make sense for people's safety and obviously to keep Charltons from selling stuff that is harmful or doesn't work. So I get it, but at the same time, it's very limiting when you find things that do work from well-intentioned people like you, and you're stifled in terms of how you can share about it publicly.

TLS 572 Desiree De Spong

[00:00:01] Luke: So if I'm not mistaken, Desiree, you are the second New Zealander guest I've had after Veda Austin. If any of the other guests from New Zealand are listening, I didn't mention them, but that's the only one I remember. And when I was contemplating that, I was wondering, I wonder who the first person I met from New Zealand was.

[00:00:26] And it brought me back to a really interesting experience very early in my healing journey wherein I was invited to a healing session with these Maori people that were visiting Los Angeles up in Topanga Canyon, of course. And they were doing this Maori body work. And so I went and saw them, and I remember sitting in what would've been the waiting room, kind of, the foyer of the house.

[00:00:52] And then they were off in the main room, a couple of them, with massage tables and whatnot. And I just heard these people screaming bloody murder in there. And I almost turned around. I was like, what is happening? But I said, "Well, I'm here. I'm going to stick with it." And my face is down, my eyes are closed, so I don't know who was doing what or with what they were doing.

[00:01:12] And I think they were probably walking on me and things of this nature. And I remember excruciating physical pain. But I had this incredible-- it's the first time in my life I had a somatic trauma release. It brought me back to all of these traumas in my life, all of this pain, and just emotional hurt that was obviously stored in my body.

[00:01:35] And that was something that I haven't thought about in a long time, but that was one of the first connections I made between the body and the spirit and how our emotions get stored in the body. And they were really beautiful people, and I think they were the first people I ever met from New Zealand.

[00:01:50] Desiree: Well, that would've been midi midi, and it is designed to allow you to release trauma, and it can be very excruciating, especially when they get the elbow into the belly button, which is the life force of where you've come from life. But yeah, [Inaudible] have a beautiful way of looking at health.

[00:02:09] And we talk about the wairua. So the wairua is the two personalities where we are bringing in the one of your personality who you came in to be, but also the sole purpose of why you're here. And the key is to bring the rivers together so you're being a true, authentic self, living life, doing what you're meant to be here doing, not what society defines. So yeah, but it's a very, very powerful body work. So I'm not surprised. Been there, done that. Exactly know what you felt.

[00:02:37] Luke: Yeah. Pretty intense. I forgot about the belly button piece. I do remember the back of my thighs being a particular area of interest in terms of-- yeah, I think what was odd about it to me at the time was just this involuntary cascade of memories. It took me into some kind of dream state where I was almost like a current life regression, a life review that you hear about when someone has a near-death experience. They just, woo. They whiz through their life like a movie. It was like that.

[00:03:08] Desiree: Yeah, it is. I presume they did a prayer beforehand.

[00:03:12] Luke: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a family. It was actually a family deeply steeped in that particular modality. Yeah.

[00:03:19] Desiree: Yeah, yeah. So family in New Zealand's called whanau. So whanau means more than just family. It's more like you've got biological family. Yes. But it's more about the people that you live your life and associate your life with. We have four pillars in New Zealand-- mind, body, spirit, but we also have whanau because the family that you choose can have a big impact on your overall health and wellbeing. So it's very big that they do come together very strong as whanau in New Zealand to be able to deliver healing because it's not just one person often that needs to be there for someone.

[00:03:56] Luke: A team, especially when you're really messed up like I was.

[00:03:59] Desiree: Yeah. Wow. I think everyone is messed up.

[00:04:02] Luke: Needed the whole council of elders to beat it out of my body. But it's funny, actually, the correlation between that and your passion and the work you do in the world around lymphatics and this technology-- I can never say it right-- Flowpresso that you've developed.

[00:04:17] And the first time I met you was here in the house, and Freddie Kimmel, our mutual friend, who's a lovely guy, been on the show at least once before, he brought you over and said, oh, you've got to try this technology. You have to meet Desiree. And both Alyson and I had a really lovely experience with you and also with the treatment, I guess you could call it.

[00:04:37] And it was really nice. And I thought, man, I could do this every day. It was so relaxing. So it's interesting that my two touch points from New Zealand have to do with pressure on the body as a healing modality. Did that have anything to do with your becoming interested in this particular field?

[00:04:58] Desiree: So I went through quite a life change in my late 20s, and that's when I decided to get into health. And so I did an unusual journey where I did shiatsu. So I studied the energy more so, and then I moved into more the body work through ortho-bionomy. And it was through that that I learned about lymphatics from a Chapman's reflex point of view, which is an osteopathic way.

[00:05:21] And that's when I fell in love with the lymphatics. But the beauty about being in New Zealand, we often are with elders the, kaumātua, we call them, and I spent time with one and learnt many things that can't even-- may say esoteric or out there, the woowoo, we call it in New Zealand.

[00:05:43] Because I'd already been trained to feel energy, then you are able to understand it even on a deeper level. And lymphatics became fascinating for me because if you're into Louise Hay or anyone that talks about the emotion associated to the body, lymphatics is all about letting go. And it's letting go of what no longer serves you.

[00:06:05] So it was so important for me because I've watched people deal with significant traumas over the years, and we've even done research with the first responders and recognizing that there's more to this system than what we know. Because medically, most people just know that it gets rid of fluid.

[00:06:24] If you've got lymphedema for example, you're moving the fluid out. And that's often how the lymphatic system is considered or managed in our more medical environment. Whereas for me and all my training, understanding the fluid change that occurs in the body when you start moving the lymphatics, that's not only on a physical level, but that's also on an emotional and spiritual.

[00:06:49] We know now more than ever that emotion is stored in cells. Emotions are stored in the fascia. So being able to get things moving, as we say, get you in the flow, it makes a significant difference.

[00:07:02] Luke: And why do you think the lymphatic system is so under acknowledged or appreciated in allopathic medicine?

[00:07:13] Desiree: Probably the main reason is the way we can measure it. We are very limited. We use lymphoscintigraphy, so they have to inject protein dye in, and therefore being able to actually understand if someone has a stuck lymph, it's actually not something you can medically get done easily.

[00:07:32] We see, for example, there's things like thermography. They can see heat patterns, and they can see that. And there's certain tests that people can do now that aren't really what I would say reliable. So it relies more on, I don't know what I don't know scenario with lymphatics. So for example, we may get high performance sports player come in, do lymphatic drainage, and they're on the couch for about a day recovering from the amount of fluid that you shifted because in the interstitial environment there was more going on than they realized, or more lactic acid, etc.

[00:08:06] So I think it comes back to more that we still haven't found a unique way to measure, and therefore people don't really know much about it other than when we get diagnosed with cancer and we have lymph nodes removed. That seems to be the one time people start to understand its function.

[00:08:20] Luke: So when things get really bad, medicine starts to pay attention.

[00:08:24] Desiree: Or you're swelling, or you're dealing with chronic illness. The lymphatic system is the drainage pathway. We need it to drain. No different than you want to flush the toilet and drain away. The same with the lymphatics. It is so pivotal now. And detox has been around for a long time. It's a big craze.

[00:08:46] But no one was thinking about the drainage pathways. So if you detox without thinking about how the lymphatic system's working, then you are virtually recirculating the actual byproduct. And then that's why so many people don't get well.

[00:09:03] Luke: It's like doing a liver cleanse and having your colon not be--

[00:09:09] Desiree: There you go. Yeah.

[00:09:10] Luke: Evacuating.

[00:09:11] Desiree: Yeah.

[00:09:11] Luke: You're like, "Oh, great. We just got it out of the organs, and now we're just soaking it all back up." It's got to do another round of filtration and be stuck again.

[00:09:19] Give us a breakdown in as much detail as you feel like providing, and don't be ever afraid to go into too much nuance and detail because I love that, and I think many people listening do. Give us a whole breakdown on what the lymphatic system is and does.

[00:09:34] Desiree: Well, I think first and foremost, it's part of the circulatory system. So we all know about the vascular is very well researched, covered, and managed. And of course that's feeding the nutrients and the oxygen into the tissue space. And of course, we've got ourselves and I often keep it simple because the analogies people get more, if you think about it, is an aquarium. Think of the cells being the fish.

[00:10:00] They're swimming around really happy in their happy aquarium. But what needs to happen to the aquarium? You need a pump to be able to filtrate that water to clean it. Otherwise, if you are feeding constantly to the fish and they've got waste product, which occurs in our interstitial environment, so our tissue space, then what's happening is over time that water's going to discolor and over time the fish, being the cell, would die.

[00:10:24] So we need this filtration system. So there is over three times more lymph than blood. Many have said in many textbook that if you were to lay it all out the lymphatic system, it would cover three football fields. It's everywhere in our body. We have up to a thousand lymph nodes, which are the powerhouse of immunity where we have lymphocyte activity going on, and there are immune systems.

[00:10:49] So these two systems work together. If your lymphatic fluid is going through into those capillaries to be cleansed by the lymph nodes, that means you're getting the optimal option of purifying that fluid. So what do I want to keep? What do I want to recycle? But more importantly, what do I want to destroy?

[00:11:07] And so it's not only cleansing, but it's also purifying that fluid in the sense of boosting your immune response and increasing lymphocyte activity. And then our gut has 70% immunity in there, or the [Inaudible], as we call it. And so the thing is that we also got these villi that are feeding the fats and proteins back to the heart.

[00:11:30] So my thing is if the lymphatic system is not working efficiently, we are literally building up the junk side of the body. And I think we underestimate it because unlike the heart, it doesn't have a pump. So the heart pumps the blood around. The only way we have the lymph moving-- and the sad reality is it's going against gravity.

[00:11:52] So at least you're going to stand upside down for the rest of your life. You're not going to be able to move it there well. But the main factors are breathing. Well, I'm sure you've done many a podcasts and discussed this, where we don't efficiently breathe correctly so that we can get that deep abdominal breathing.

[00:12:12] Because pretty much from the waist up, you're relying on deep breath to propel it up through what's called the thoracic duct, which is a chamber that runs through the chest and comes into the left subclavian vein where it meets with the heart, and that's when it gets cleansed through the liver, etc.

[00:12:27] So breath is one of them. Movement is the other. But the third one is what we call a lymphangion muscle, and that requires sleep, deep quality sleep. And that's why a lot of people's ankles will go down at night, for example. But we've also got the glymphatic system now. We've finally worked out. We've got this microscopic system that's actually getting rid of soluble proteins and metabolites from the central nervous system.

[00:12:54] Ironically, it's dumping into our cervical nodes. In New Zealand, we call them cervical. I'm not too sure why we have to do it differently. And so for me, just understanding that the impact of draining your lymphatics is cleaning up, mopping up, proving your immune response, but it's also impacting the brain.

[00:13:13] And all these neurological issues we are seeing creeping in around the world is significant. And if we are moving the lymph and we are sleeping up to eight hours, which is what's required to drain the glymphatics more correctly, we're going to have improved quality of health.

[00:13:29] Luke: Do you think in terms of the glymphatic system and the brain washing in the most positive sense, not in the propaganda way-- the physiological brainwashing that takes place when you have the quality and duration of sleep required to do so, have you seen any research or any anecdotal evidence to support this idea of incline sleeping, where you're sleeping with your head a bit higher?

[00:13:55] Desiree: So I haven't seen a lot. I think the glymphatic system still really is being challenged at the moment because a lot of it's been done more in mice and animals, etc., rather than humans, and it's really hard to study. So when we put someone in Flowpresso, we do do an incline.

[00:14:14] Because the minute you start moving lymph, it's like that horrible sensation when your sinuses start to drain and it starts to fall into the back of the throat. So slight elevation will always improve lymphatic drainage of the head and face area. So it's important for me as far as I'm concerned, even if we don't have the research to back it.

[00:14:33] Luke: I ask for a couple reasons. I've heard some pretty convincing, supporting evidence that sleeping in that way is beneficial because of this issue. It's easier for things to move around if you're letting gravity help you. However, we had this bed called a Samina sleep system, this very super uber, uber natural bed.

[00:14:56] And they come like that. It's four inches higher on the head of the bed. And so when we moved in this house, I got one of those, and Alyson really didn't like that. Well, she didn't like a lot of things about the bed, but that was one of them. So I chopped two inches off the incline and made it only two inches higher at the head.

[00:15:15] And she still hated it. And I thought it was just because she didn't like the style of mattress. It's not as cushy as a latex mattress or something. So anyway, we got a new bed frame, and we're going to get an Essentia mattress, which are really cozy, beautiful, and a normal, healthy mattress.

[00:15:35] And so I put a couple of blocks under the new bed frame and just didn't really think to ask her, even though-- I'm a little thickheaded-- she had mentioned she hated it. But I just thought, ah, no. She probably just didn't like the other part of it. She won't even notice. It's only an inch or two.

[00:15:51] Put it under there, and one day she comes out super pissed. Oh, she's like, "Dude, I told you I hated that incline thing." And I said, "No, I think it's good for you." She said, "I don't give a shit. I don't believe in that. My sleep's horrible." So I took it out, of course. And she's been sleeping much better. So for her it didn't work.

[00:16:07] I feel like I didn't really notice it, but it has always made sense to me in a very kind of simplistic way that you're allowing the fluids of the body to move, especially from the brain, easier if you're tipped up a little bit.

[00:16:21] Desiree: Well, the research I saw was more lying on your left side.

[00:16:25] Luke: Oh, interesting.

[00:16:26] Desiree: Because all lymph ends up in the left subclavian. We have what we call watersheds. They run down the center of the body waistline. So the right side is only right chest, breast, down halfway to the waistline drains to the right subclavian, and then it'll track over to go to the left.

[00:16:47] All the rest of your body is going into that left subclavian. So that's why they say, to lie on the left side, because, and it has been shown that that does improve lymphatic drainage, but also for the brain as well.

[00:17:01] Luke: What side do you sleep on?

[00:17:02] Desiree: I sleep on my right.

[00:17:03] Luke: You do?

[00:17:04] Desiree: A lot. I actually consciously start on my left in the hope, but I always wake up on my right.

[00:17:10] Luke: That's funny. I'm the opposite. I can barely sleep on my right side. Left side is always how I fall asleep.

[00:17:16] Desiree: I put it down to my husband snoring though. Maybe I'm just rolling--

[00:17:19] Luke: You're trying to get away. That's hilarious. Okay, cool. I forgot that I even wanted to ask you about that incline sleeping thing. Because it's a very niche practice, and so there's not a lot of hard evidence to support it. But the few people that are advocates of that incline sleeping are really into it. And so I think their enthusiasm is caught onto me at times. But it's over in this house, so I guess I don't need to worry about it.

[00:17:46] How is the lymphatic system related to immune health?

[00:17:52] Desiree: So they basically work together. So as I said earlier, within those lymphatic capillaries, you've got circulating lymphocytes throughout the whole body. Your main immune organs are your thymus, which we used to tap in the days gone by to wake it up. And there's some research to say it got smaller when you got older. It was bigger when you were younger.

[00:18:16] But I think they're progressing on that. You've got the spleen, which is another one. You've obviously got your appendix, which we lovingly always took out, but now we realize-- Duke University, I think, was the first to say that it's actually a powerhouse of probiotics. And then you've got obviously the tonsils, which again seem to be something that was common to have removed, but they're realizing now to leave in.

[00:18:39] And then you've got what's even called Peyer's patches, which is these immune cells within the small intestine. And we usually have around about 20, but they've got B and T cells. So the B cells are the ones that create the antibodies. The T cells are the one that's the immune response.

[00:18:55] I always call it the general, the one that's sending everyone into fire. And then, of course, you've got things like NK cells, which is your natural killer cells. You've got so much going on within the immune system. So those two are linked. And the research, for example, in my world, which is lymphatic drainage, is when you increase lymphatic drainage, you increase lymphocyte activity.

[00:19:17] Now, could it be that it's because you're circulating fluids? Yes. Could it be that you're actually moving the byproducts so the inflammatory markers are coming down? Yes. So there's a number of reasons. And then you're pushing more fluid through the lymph nodes so they can do more cleansing, processing, and eliminating.

[00:19:33] And of course those lymph nodes, let us go back to those, they are where there is an absolute large hub. So I think in cancer, for example, if someone comes in in my clinic and would say, "I had three lymph nodes and one was involved," I'm going, "Great. It didn't get to the other two. That's fantastic."

[00:19:53] Because it's a pathway that it will travel on often. And so they are there to try and circumvent anything from progressing, just like our glands go up when we get a cold. They swell. They're actually trying to do their job to efficiently help form an immune response.

[00:20:10] Luke: I like that perspective because we think of some of these responses in the body as symptoms that we need to treat or get rid of. Meanwhile, the body's going, "No, dumb ass. I'm trying to help you. That's why your lymph glands are swollen. I'm doing my job. Relax." I think it's just hard for us to sit with discomfort sometimes. So we want to suppress these symptoms even though it's the body's innate healing capacity at work.

[00:20:36] Desiree: Yeah. The greatest thing we can do when we've got that kind of thing occurring is, again, coming back to the greatest way to shift the lymphatics, is through parasympathetic response. So downregulating the stress response and putting you into that. That's why we wrap up in a blanket and try to increase our body temperature, so it can create a natural fever.

[00:20:58] And then you're trying to actually create the rest. You need the rest for the body so it can do what it's here to do. But we try to get on with life, keep doing, take 100 pills, put everything on us, and do a lot of biohacking and/or tech work, but the thing is, your body needs that time to create the antibodies.

[00:21:18] If we just think of it that way, you want the body to know how to save you from having that same discomfort again. Because part of the process of our immune response is to work out, what is this foreign entity? Do I create an antibody so I can protect you from it again? Or is it self-made? And that's one of the things I find the greatest challenge with cancer, is we make those cells.

[00:21:41] And so it's really an immune disruption that's going on that the body's not recognizing that something's happening. And that's been from my experience of observing, watching how much stressed people are around the time of that diagnosis. And if you think of the cells generating, it's that kind of mouse on the wheel going chichichi, and the cells just keep producing. Well, we need to put people back into some parasympathetic autonomic regulation rather than dysregulation.

[00:22:10] The lymphatics kicks in, the drainage pathways open, you've got an increased immune response, and that's where I go, "Sometimes we're just missing this link over and over again of the importance of this role that it can play."

[00:22:24] Luke: That makes sense. If you're given a diagnosis like that, you're probably going to go into fight or flight, depending on your temperament and your ability to roll with life's punches. But I imagine your average person's probably going to have the shock and awe panic phase of that, where they are going to go totally sympathetic, and probably lose sleep, and be worrying, all of that kind of thing, go limbic system, stuck mode, which isn't going to then, according to you, allow the lymphatic system to inform the immune system to actually go solve the problem. So it's sort of self-perpetuating in that way.

[00:23:00] Desiree: Yeah.

[00:23:01] Luke: That's very interesting. What about this practice of hyperthermia? Are you familiar with that as one of these alternative treatments or adjunct treatments for cancer? Does that have anything to do with a lymphatic system?

[00:23:14] Desiree: Yes and no. Hyperthermia for me was always about trying to give you and put you into that natural temperature, build up the body. In my experience, in the last 20 years, when I was in clinic, not so much now because busy dealing with the company, but so many people's basal temp was very low. So that's the temperature you do on rising.

[00:23:36] And a lot of women especially too, you find they're very cold and that lower abdomen, buttock area, which, again, causes illness, stagnation issues associated to that. So hypothermia, especially when it comes to cancer, was used very progressively to be able to try induce a fever, which is our natural way.

[00:23:57] I was old-school when I raised my children. You gave pain med when they were really uncomfortable and suffering, but you allowed the fever. You monitored it closely. I would sleep with the children to make sure that they could live through that fever so that we could actually kill off the viruses or the cancer cells, etc., that was there. So I think there's merit there. They now do it under controlled, even with chemotherapy. They're doing a number of different ways.

[00:24:25] Luke: Oh, really?

[00:24:25] Desiree: Yeah. And especially over in Europe.

[00:24:28] Luke: Interesting. And just to clarify for those listening, I said hyperthermia, not hypothermia.

[00:24:33] Desiree: Oh, sorry.

[00:24:34] Luke: No, no, no. You got it. You know what I meant? But I just realized, I was like, if I said it quickly, it might've sounded like, yeah, you get really cold. No, we're talking about they wrap you in a bunch of heating blankets and you sweat your ass off and think you're going die, kind of thing. It's a pretty extreme treatment.

[00:24:46] Desiree: It's very extreme what they do. And then you're constantly monitored. But I have seen clients that they've gone overseas to do it.

[00:24:55] Luke: Right. Because it's one of those things the FDA probably isn't crazy about.

[00:24:59] Desiree: Yeah. So I haven't heard of it here in the US so much. Being based in New Zealand, you're hearing a lot of around what's going on in the world, and it's predominantly over in Europe that we see that one being administered.

[00:25:10] Luke: So in my admittedly limited understanding of the lymphatic system, a couple things that I've heard that are good for it would be skin brushing. When I take my saunas, I have a-- this company, HigherDOSE, makes a great little skin brush with copper bristles.

[00:25:29] Desiree: Yeah, yeah.

[00:25:30] Luke: At first, it felt very sensitive, and I could barely do it. And now I just grind that thing up and down my body. And I don't know if I'm going the right direction. Maybe you could speak to that. And then the other thing, you mentioned movement, obviously. But I've heard bouncing up and down. So I've had a Bellicon rebounder for years, and I jump around on that a little bit at least every day.

[00:25:51] But I think last time you were here, I might be mistaken, but I think you said with the rebounder that in terms of the direct impact on the lymphatic system that we're looking for, you don't want to actually get air and jump up and down. You just want to gently bounce on it.

[00:26:07] Desiree: Yeah. You want to pulse on it. So you want to keep at least one foot connected to the mat. And there is [Inaudible] out there that were specifically designed with 36 spring that were part of NASA and everything. This is how it all came about. And it is about pulsing if you want to work with the lymphatics. If you want to jump up and down, that's more exercise in my world. But you've got your vibration plates now that you can get.

[00:26:32] Luke: Yeah, I've got two of those.

[00:26:34] Desiree: Yeah. And I always go, be a little bit careful with those because they're rattling your bones. You don't want that. You want it to create a movement, and you also want to be mindful you don't overdo it.

[00:26:43] So normally most times on a rebounder or a plate, a vibration plate, we would only do 10 minutes because you can actually create a lot of change in that short period of time, and you want your body to know what to do with it and to be able to absorb those fluids and shift them. And some people do-- can even get a herx response from just doing the 10 minutes a day. Dry skin brushing, it is natural bristle all the time. Don't just grab any brush. It doesn't work.

[00:27:10] Luke: What do you think about the copper bristles?

[00:27:11] Desiree: As long as you're not scrubbing yourself like you're trying to have a shower.

[00:27:16] Luke: Okay.

[00:27:16] Desiree: Just so you know.

[00:27:18] Luke: So a lighter touch would actually be--

[00:27:19] Desiree: Yeah. It's more to create that tingling-- you know when someone rubs their fingers across your skin and you get that tingle feel. You want to be able to create a lovely pink color.

[00:27:30] Luke: Okay.

[00:27:31] Desiree: But not a very dark red color. That's the difference. Because the lymphatics, predominantly 75% of it is surface lymphatics. So what that means is it's just sitting in under the skin. So you don't have to go deep, because that's where then you're going into muscle.

[00:27:47] So the idea is to always sweep towards the heart if you're nothing else. And always think of what we call proximal to distal, which means that if I've got a pathway I am trying to open, I don't start-- if you think of a toll booth, you're not the car at the back pushing forward.

[00:28:04] You want to start with the very first car in the front. So what that means is you would start up at the terminus, which is above the collarbone, and then you'd work your way down to the feet. Whereas a lot of people start at the feet.

[00:28:14] Luke: That's what I do. I start at the feed. Dammit.

[00:28:17] Desiree: Yeah. It's just so that I'm trying to open each pathway to get the fluid to open. So then it will draw a fluid towards it, and then that way you get a better response. And we always do pre-shower because that's slotting the dead cells. We get in, and your skin just feels amazing for doing it as well. But you're also getting the lymphatic circulation.

[00:28:36] Luke: We just changed my dry skin brushing routine significantly because I was doing it totally wrong. Really hard. Starting at the feet. Dammit. Okay, now I know. Now I know. And now everyone listening knows. In terms of the vibration plates, I have two of them. One of is called Vibeplate, and it's like a stretching rack, you can put it on and do pull-ups while you're vibrating and do a little yoga and stuff. It's quite nice. And then I have one in the garage that is the old Bulletproof one that's very strong.

[00:29:08] Desiree: Yes.

[00:29:09] Luke: And I've always felt pretty good on those. But then I saw something recently, as we do. It was an Instagram reel or something, and they were talking about, if you're on a vibration plate and it's not the right frequency, that your brain experiences it as a bunch of micro concussions. Do you know anything about that? Because then I was like, "Oh God."

[00:29:30] Desiree: Yeah. So that's where they've realized the intensity now. These older ones that we used to do, they used to get you doing exercise on all crazy things. We had them in New Zealand as well, but they were too intense. They were literally rattling your bones and your brain.

[00:29:43] So you do have to be careful that you are just getting a slight vibration, around that 35. I think 35 hertz to 60 hertz is enough, but anything over that, it's just too intense for the body. And it will because your brain will be shaking around, and that's where there'll be the concern that you're going to go on and have other issues because you were trying to do lymph, but you ended up with other problems because of the intensity of the actual vibration.

[00:30:10] Luke: Yeah, something to be mindful of. I remember years ago there was this device, I think it was from Korea, called a TurboSonic. Have you seen these? It's a vibration technology, but rather than having a vibrating motor, like the mechanical ones I'm describing, it's actually a giant subwoofer.

[00:30:30] Desiree: Oh, wow.

[00:30:30] Luke: And so it's sound vibration, and it has a really wide range from like weee to bababa. So it's got this dial, and you could run these different programs on it. And that one to me always felt much more gentle, and it would run you through the different frequencies, depending on what setting you pick that you're working on. But I never felt like, oh, this is hurting my head or anything like that, because it's a different kind of experience when it's just moving sound waves versus an actual vibrating motor that's bouncing up and down quickly.

[00:31:04] Desiree: Yeah. It will be because frequency now, I think we're going to see more and more. I think there will be more and more vibration, but it'll be done in a different way. I'm certainly looking into a lot of different ideas at the moment around vibration because if you can create that gentle movement throughout the body where it's like that ripple you think of when you throw a stone in water and it creates that ripple effect.

[00:31:26] If you can create that ripple being that we're mainly predominantly made up of water, you can create quite a significant shift in the intracellular as well as extracellular matrix of the cells. So for me, I think we are going to see more of vibration, sound, and vibration done in a particular hertz so that you're actually getting this done correctly. Whereas in the past it was all about let's just shake you.

[00:31:52] Luke: Brute force.

[00:31:52] Desiree: Yeah, yeah.

[00:31:54] Luke: Well, after learning that about the brain, I have changed my protocol a bit. I find it doesn't seem to hit the brain if your body is more relaxed and you've got some bend in your knees. And I'll even do squats on it, things like that. It seems like if you stand up straight, that vibration is going from the soles of your feet, and you can feel it hitting your head if you're too rigid and erect and the way you're standing. The more you slouch and move around, it gets dissipated by the time it hits your head. That's what I've noticed.

[00:32:28] Desiree: Yeah, definitely. No, I would agree. We do have people that sit on them mainly because they find the standings too intense. Again, you've got to be thinking about that intensity of the vibration, because even more so it's gone straight up through that spine, and then it will actually impact on the head as well. But yeah, you're not supposed to have what I call locked knees when you're on a vibration plate. There is supposed to be that soft stance and then the whole body's getting-- you want to feel all your bits wiggle.

[00:32:58] Luke: Yeah.

[00:32:58] Desiree: You want to feel it all, not just your--

[00:33:01] Luke: We know what you mean. Wink, wink.

[00:33:01] Desiree: Straight up through the center.

[00:33:03] Luke: Yeah. I'm glad we covered this because the Vibeplate, big cage thing I have is much more gentle, and it also has variable speed, so you can select the hertz. And when I've been on that, because the other one I have in the garage is so much stronger, I'd be like, "Ah, is this really doing anything? It's not that strong." So I feel better now--

[00:33:20] Desiree: This is more--

[00:33:21] Luke: Using that one that. More is more does not really apply when you're vibrating the body.

[00:33:27] Desiree: And when you think about manual drainage, it's a soft, gentle technique. It's very directed. It's not. And most people will go, "Oh, how on that is that going to ever do anything for me?" And then they come away and go, 24 hours, "I knew you'd definitely done something." And so that's why you've got to be thinking about where the lymphatic system sits, and you don't need excessive force to move it.

[00:33:50] Luke: Got it. Or excessive skin brushing.

[00:33:53] Desiree: There you go.

[00:33:54] Luke: Let's talk about the detox pathways. I think this is a really important distinction because as you said, there is a very positive trend that we're becoming aware that our environment, the things we eat, breathe, drink, etc., are just full of poison.

[00:34:06] Unfortunately, so many of us are like, "Ah, I get it out." And we might have hack some reactions if we do it too quickly or too aggressively, and it's problematic, detox in general,. So you hear people creating all these different systems and programs by which to do so. But it seems to me, to your point earlier, that if you're moving these toxins from one place in the body to another, that we really need to have the channels to get them out of the body open.

[00:34:36] So maybe give us the deep dive on how the lymph and things like your technology, the Flowpresso, I said it right this time, can assist in that process and maybe the potential risks and just willy-nilly detoxing the body when it's not willing to let go of what you're trying to get rid of.

[00:34:57] Desiree: Yeah. We have four ways of eliminating. So we've got obviously, bowel, kidney, all your own. We've got breath, and that's always a good indicator if your breath's not great that there's something going on. And then we've got sweat. So that's how if we go backwards, and we'll go to how it would end, and then we'll move our way back.

[00:35:16] And then, of course, you've got the liver that would be doing a lot of the cleansing and processing. So the liver does need support. You do need to have regular bowel motions. You need to be keeping good quality water going through the body. I use the terrible analogy because it's the only way I can get people to drink water.

[00:35:32] Men keep telling me there's water in beer, or there's water and coffee. And I'm like, "Not quite the analogy I'm trying to make here." You flush the toilet to get rid of the byproduct. Same thing. We need water. So for us to improve, you've got those systems that definitely need help. And I see we've had many people come through our clinic that just bowel motions alone were every five days.

[00:35:57] It was horrific to even think about how that was even being managed. But people, I don't think-- how many doctors go, "How many times do you have the toilet every day?" They don't ask you. They don't. I stopped saying, "Are you regular?" Because people would say yes, because it was their regular.

[00:36:16] Luke: Yeah. Once a week.

[00:36:17] Desiree: Exactly. And so for me that's the important thing about we've got to make sure that those systems are functioning first and foremost. And then with the lymphatic systems coming in, it's taking everything out of that cellular environment, that interstitial environment.

[00:36:32] So all those fluids that your cells are bathing in right now, it's responsible for moving that. So if I take a whole lot of detox pills or do a program, and I'm not considering a poop, pee breath, and skin, if I'm not using those or I'm not eliminating correctly in that, then what happens is the body's basically holding back from eliminating.

[00:36:57] Then you've got the lymphatic system trying to manage all this stuff coming in. Because it'll come through via the vascular, the gut, and it'll be circulating in. So you're starting to create what I call a soup of environment, where you're just not getting rid of it. And I think that's where people need to understand that the lymphatic system, you may look great, physically fit, all the rest, but that's not always the case when it comes to the lymphatics.

[00:37:22] It's like, for example, you might have a shoulder injury. That will straight away impede the lymphatics on that side of the body. You may have lower back issues. Again, you're impeding all around the inguinal, which is lymph nodes in the groin.

[00:37:36] You may have had a surgery. The scars are the worst. Any scar will impede the lymphatic system in some form or another. So there's all these other aspects that can impact on the lymphatics that people don't necessarily consider through the process. And I just think it's one of those really important things to consider, that it is literally the waste system of the body. It is trying to remove everything around those cells to help your body improve mitochondria, DNA, etc.

[00:38:06] Luke: Well, when you think about one of the things that you said earlier that there's three times the amount of lymphatic fluid than there is blood in your body, that alone got my attention because that means, well, it must be meaningful. Nature didn't create it that way, just we got some extra fluid. We don't know what to do with. Let's just throw it in there.

[00:38:26] It obviously serves a really vital purpose. Maybe some of the issue, as you said earlier is that there isn't an instant test to see how it's working, so it's probably difficult to identify when a dysfunctional lymphatic system is the root cause or one of the main root causes of any issues you're having. It seems to be difficult to diagnose.

[00:38:51] Desiree: Yeah. And the vascular system, we blame it all on the lymphatics when things go wrong, but it's often the vascular system that's the issue. So the capillaries leak and they leak what they call blood plasma protein into the tissue space. Now, if the lymphatics system does not pick that up and return it back to our blood system, we would literally die within 48 hours.

[00:39:16] So it's really important to understand, and the only system that can return those plasma proteins is the lymphatics. So there's even that going on in the background that we don't even realize. So often when there's a lymphatic issue, there is a vascular issue going on as well. There's some leaking going on in the capillaries that's causing this too.

[00:39:34] And that's why, for example, if you have lymphedema, from any cancer, you've had lymph nodes removed. Yes, that's playing a part. But also, for me, there has to be a vascular issue as well going on. And a lot of people have gone through chemoradiation. It all impacts on the way these capillaries are working.

[00:39:57] And so you've got to start getting a problem in the tissue. And so you have all this leaking going on and then therefore the lymphatic system has to take it out and move it away for you. So that's one of the reasons Flowpresso came about, was, a, it's tough out there to find many manual lymphatic drainage therapists that are very well trained.

[00:40:20] There is such a shortage of them in the world, to be honest. And so part of the drive was a doctor going, come on, "You must be able to create something for me." And I'm kind of looking at the whole time going, "You got to be mad. I'm not a med tech person. I've never developed anything in my life. I just work on bodies."

[00:40:38] But part of it was, that was the reason we put heat in. And because I wanted to create vasodilation, I wanted to create, improve circulation blood flow, get the heat into the body, bring that core body temp up, coming back to your hyperthermia. I'm not cooking someone to be uncomfortable.

[00:40:55] I'm more warming them up, warming their core body, temp up so I can improve circulation so that then when we are doing the sequential compression, we're able to then move that lymph and change the consistency of it. Because it's supposed to be a little bit like skim milk, but it can end up a bit more thicker, like cottage cheese. It can actually change its texture.

[00:41:16] So you want to be able to keep getting things circulating, and therefore when we circulate and we move, we've got now nutrient increase, decrease more importantly of inflammation, and then the body can start to really recover and uptake the product they're taking up. We've seen that time and time again where people have found that their supplements, they're actually noticing a different intake.

[00:41:40] Or if they're on medication, they're having to have it reduced. Because their body's able to uptake now differently because it's more pure or cleansed, so it's not dealing with as much inflammation. So then we can actually improve how the body's absorbing as well.

[00:41:57] Luke: Interesting, interesting. For those listening, oftentimes when someone's created something, we will have our little display table here, and we have a couple of your small devices here. But for those listening, could you describe the Flowpresso system? What I remember is there was some compressor generator component, and then you put on this full body suit, this Michelin man suit, and the machine goes on. And it was like a wave experience of pressure moving through the body, a four-handed massage or something like that, with the warmth as you indicated.

[00:42:38] So that was my experience of it, but I couldn't draw it for you right now. I'd have to go to your website and go, "Yeah, that's the thing. That's the thing." So maybe describe what this is and what makes it different than just someone doing great body work on you or something like that, or even a human lymphatic drainage specialist.

[00:42:57] Desiree: I still want to disclaim because that's my background too, is that there is times you do need a well-trained lymphatic therapist. Especially post-surgery or anything that's been major we need to isolate where is the buildup, where is the environment now that's under stress from that surgery?

[00:43:17] So your auxiliary nodes, which are in your armpit built up. Have we got a stagnation around there? That kind of thing. So the suit came in more as a general overall. So there's a compression, like you said, a controller unit, that delivers the compression and heat, and we plug in what we call a mattress, which is just something that lays over the massage table that holds and houses all the cords.

[00:43:39] And then you have a set that goes on your feet. We have a compression chamber that hits the base of the foot, so the planter, because when you're walking, that's pumping lymph as well. And then we have it around the ankle. And then we have four different chambers in the leg.

[00:43:54] We have two in the abdomen as well, or around the torso, so down in the lower back and the upper around the rib area, just below the xiphoid process. And then we have a back piece, and that's designed to bring the shoulders up because so many people suffer from so much stress in their shoulders these days that it was really to hone in on that subscapular area.

[00:44:14] And then we have two compression chambers in the arms. And so what you're describing, the way, which is a perfect way to put it, it is a sequential. So lymphatics have one-way valves up through each of their capillaries. We call them capillaries. You call them capillaries. And so the idea is that when the surge comes through, these valves open and they go into the next chamber.

[00:44:38] So if you're moving fluid, the last thing you want to do is let go, until you've been able to create the propulsion, the propelling of that fluid into the next chamber. So that's why they overlap as well. So there's a very specific way to be able to get that fluid up. And part of putting the technology where we had compression in the back was so that we could lift up and pump that thoracic up through the center of the chest.

[00:45:00] Because we don't have it over the chest because people tend to feel anxiety when they've held down across that chest wall area. And so then by delivering the heat and the compression, we are literally trying to move-- a little bit like Freddy always uses the analogy, a toothpaste. We're literally squeezing the toothpaste out of the tube to be able to bring the fluids up to where we want them to meet with those subclavian veins and then go to the heart. And then you can process through the liver and eliminate accordingly.

[00:45:29] We do have two modes in this technology. That one, which I just talked about, is what we call more around the lymphatics. We also have one we call sports mode, which is a full body isometric. It's the only way to explain it. So it's a compress. It starts with the feet again, hold, hold, all the way up the body, and then a full body release.

[00:45:48] Once it's done quite a hold for about 5 to 10 seconds, great for moving the fascia, great for getting blood flow really increase. So sports people tend to love it. It's very good for performance recovery. It's like you just come in and you go out completely different. Because it's like getting a full body reset, the whole flush. Everything starts to move.

[00:46:09] And in clinical care we often use that more if someone's dealing with more of a health issue. Probably weight loss is a really good analogy to give you. When someone's trying to lose weight, they're doing everything right, they're still following the program, but all of a sudden they stop losing weight, it's like they're stuck. This is when we'd put them in mode two. Because it's a bit of a push. It's like, "Come on, let's change the body's behavior."

[00:46:33] And sometimes you need that even in-- I've dealt with trauma cases and everything because this thing does feel like you're being wrapped up, loved, and hugged. We get everything from first responders through to sports people saying, "God, I just feel like I've been hugged all over," which if we change that into explaining what that means in a more of a medical, I think it's the deep pressure therapy, it's like having that weighted blanket on, but it's warm.

[00:46:57] You're cozy. There's a sense of safety, so you let go. And so in trauma situations, we do it mode one, but sometimes that mode two is actually to be held so tight, so strong, just like you do with often autistic kids. You hold them really tight and then they relax, because there's a sense of safety. And that's also where mode two can be very beneficial.

[00:47:21] Luke: Well, that speaks to the parasympathetic element. You want the body to be relaxed if you want things to move inside. You could just picture the contraction that you feel when you're emotionally charged. You can feel your body get tense. It's just a natural physiological response.

[00:47:38] Desiree: Yeah.

[00:47:39] Luke: So it makes sense that it would be so. And that was a great description of that. That's like, "Oh yeah, I remember that. I remember that." What was it like for you as someone with no experience in, I'm assuming engineering, product design, and so on, just having--

[00:47:56] Desiree: It was challenging.

[00:47:57] Luke: Passion and knowledge. Yeah. I'm curious about your journey of like, are you drawing something, or are you hiring a number of different people to help with the design? You know what you're going for, but you don't know necessarily how to make it. So walk me through that process.

[00:48:12] Desiree: Yeah. So I turned into a mad scientist in a basement. Literally, I went into my basement in my property, got a whole lot of different tech that was already out there. I was hoping I could find something that I could just plug and play, but it wasn't that easy. And of course then not only do you have to come up with-- so I found a couple of tech that I could at least get the concept so we could start getting air compressions pretty general.

[00:48:39] There's not a lot of science, as in, it's not complicated to get air compression systems. Not many had heat, so that was a challenge that I had to come across. And so I started working with one company initially, and I created this prototype, and I brought it here to the States because that's where my three different colleagues were prepared to test it.

[00:48:59] And at the time I'm so embarrassed about this thing. I look back now-- I've kept it just to remind me where I've come-- and the cables were really bad. The connections would break. It's funny now. And so long story short, you go through the process of going, is this working? Have I got the concept right?

[00:49:21] I wasn't even leaving the US, and I was getting these incredible videos of testimonials from people crying after 25 years of Lyme, not being able to feel okay, and then feeling great for the first time since then right through to, we were seeing changes in heart rate variability, which comes back to the deep pressure. And so I had to go back, and I had to then find suppliers. I had to work with different companies, engineers, to see if I could get the sequential bit right.

[00:49:50] That was what was really important to me. We can always adjust the technology or the pieces, for example. You can allow for that. But that sequential was a lot of time. No, that's not right. We need to adjust it now. We need to do it this. And that's where it really was tough there for a little while.

[00:50:07] And then, of course, everyone was learning about the old tech and wanted to buy this. And so I'm so grateful for the three people that supported me over here because they went on and started selling the new one before it was even launched. And I think our first shipment came in, and we had pre-sold it all.

[00:50:27] And this is the first time these three people even got to see it, and they're like going, "Oh, thank goodness. This is even way better." So that was a moment where I was like, "Oh, thank goodness we've got it right." But then the problem we had is we launched February, 2020 to have our whole country shut down in March.

[00:50:44] Luke: Oh.

[00:50:45] Desiree: So that created another whole group of issues. But there's always a silver lining, right? And six months later I happened to mention I was doing some studies with the cardiac clinic there, and we were noticing these improvements to sleep and these improvements to stress, anxiety, and heart rate variability. It was making a significant, adjusting someone out of sympathetic into parasympathetic.

[00:51:09] And I happened to mention there was a critical incident in New Zealand in our local area with police, and I got contacted by the local welfare office, and they said, "Look, we want to put this guy in. He doesn't want counseling, but we've heard about this tech. Could we put him in?" I said, "Sure."

[00:51:27] Well, he went back and said it was incredible. So I met with the wellness team, and very long story short, we went into our initial pilot trial. We had 19 police officers ranging from-- we call them AOS. You call them SWAT. Right through to frontline. And we started testing that.

[00:51:45] Could we change heart rate variability? Could we improve blood pressure? Could we change fatigue? Could we change stress, anxiety, and sleep? We got a yes all the way through-- significant changes. So then we had the opportunity to turn that into a 135-candidate group. And these were police officers, male, females, different locations, so smaller communities, large communities, from the AOS, as I said, right through to the child support people through to the frontline.

[00:52:15] And so, of course, that creates a whole lot of variables. It's challenging when this one system is all that's available, and we are relying on them. Got no involvement in what they sleep, what they eat, what they drink, what they behave, blah, blah, blah, and what incidences they were managing at the time.

[00:52:33] And of course, this is when, I don't know if you remember, but New Zealand got put through where we were ostracized if you weren't vaccinated. So what happened is that that created a whole lot of upheaval. So of course the police were trying to manage that, and so it's a really stressful time. But out of that 135, we end up with a 91% improvement of sleep. Now, this is one session a week of 40 minutes for three weeks. We had up to 62% change in stress and a 53% change in anxiety.

[00:53:06] Luke: Incredible.

[00:53:07] Desiree: And that's why the value of being deep pressure held safe and given an environment for 40 minutes where you can let go, allow your body to do what it needs to do. In other words, whether it's lymphatic drainage or whether it's just going into parasympathetic, to get those results, that's what came out of the plus for me of being stuck in New Zealand and I couldn't travel, was I was able to learn all these other things that this technology was doing. I probably would never have had an opportunity. It would've just been purely a lymphatic drainage technology.

[00:53:41] Luke: Wow. I love your attitude there, the silver lining. There's always one, even if it takes you a while to find it.

[00:53:48] Desiree: Yes. Sometimes it's challenging.

[00:53:49] Luke: With Flowpresso, this is something that would be used by a practitioner, so people listening that are like, "Oh, wow. This is cool. I want to get one of those." This isn't something that's like a consumer product. This is a practitioner product. So how would one find a practitioner? Are there a lot of them in the US by now, or it is it difficult to come by?

[00:54:13] Desiree: Yeah. So we are a class II medical device. We were approved by FDA, so that was a big tick for us. It just shows that we're prepared to put the time into all the safety and the challenges that they can create, which was quite challenging because I end up taking the lead in it March last year after about a year and a half with an agency and got us through after.

[00:54:36] You'd like to think I knew what the tech was so I could answer it. So that meant that now they are licensed healthcare practitioners. So chiropractors, your medical doctors, but also estheticians can use technology. So can acupuncturists, those kind of things. And so I think there's over 400 clinics here in the US now. So we're still taking off. I still think I'm a startup, even though I'm four years in only because of the limit of travel.

[00:55:04] Luke: That's a lot though considering what happened in 2020 that stymied your launch and your potential for growth.

[00:55:11] Desiree: Delayed us two years.

[00:55:13] Luke: That's quite a lot.

[00:55:14] Desiree: Yeah. And so we do on our website have a location map. Not all our clinics are up there because some of them have certain in-house programs, so you have to go and do the whole program. You just can't turn up and do Flowpresso. But the ones that do, and if not, they can always reach out to our team because one thing we've learned in New Zealand is that you can be in a different state, and it's shorter to drive to another state to get to a Flowpresso than what it is within your state.

[00:55:41] Luke: Right. Depending on where you are in the state. Yeah. Like if you're in Texas and you're on one of the edges, it's definitely going to be closer than trying to get to Dallas, Austin, or something. You can dip into Arkansas or whatever else is close by. New Mexico, I think is another one.

[00:55:57] Desiree: Yeah.

[00:55:58] Luke: Okay. So we're going to put the show notes for this one at lukestorey.com/flowpresso, P-R-E-S-S-O, and then your website is flowpressousa.com. We'll put all that clickable in the show description. When someone's doing a Flowpresso treatment with a practitioner, is it usually advise that they're taking some binders or taking a sauna afterward?

[00:56:26] What happens if somebody's really toxic and now we're moving it around and we're opening up these pathways and we don't have anything to catch it and get it out of the body? What are the other adjunct in terms of detox protocols?

[00:56:40] Desiree: Yeah, so a binder is great. Now, just to note, you are fully clothed in this because we don't want you to sweat in the suit for starters. And that creates another barrier of security. But definitely a binder does help significantly. We've noticed that that will make electrolytes, being well hydrated.

[00:57:02] Because you will find the people that aren't will be incredibly thirsty for about 24 hours afterwards. Because we've done some studies. It's a technology called SOZO, S-O-Z, we say Z, Z-O. And it's an impedance unit that's often used in hospitals to measure L-Dex of the lymphedema.

[00:57:21] But I've got the one that also does quadrants. I can tell the difference between your right arm to your left arm, right leg to left leg, but it's also telling me intracellular, extracellular fluid. And we've only done a small study at this point. We're going to do a bigger one, but to date we've noticed there's about a 2% change from extracellular to intracellular.

[00:57:40] So we're pushing fluid into the cell, which is what we want fundamentally. Most people's if you look at the health issues, a lot of people are in the extracellular. So we know we push your fluids around. So being well hydrated, using electrolytes afterwards, a binder if you are-- not even if you are unwell. It's more that if you need help to take out-- if you would be dealing with any sort of toxicity, which as you said earlier, is probably all of us with the environment right now. I notice a significant difference coming here to the US to my skin and everything just being here.

[00:58:14] Luke: Really?

[00:58:15] Desiree: Yeah. Oh, a huge difference. And I have to hydrate a lot more. I get very dehydrated here. And I know it's hot here, but even in New Zealand when it's that hot, I'm not dealing as such. The water's different. The food's different. We were at Freddy's last night, and we had a steak, and I was horrified to see how much you pay for a piece of steak here in the US. And we are still grass-fed.

[00:58:38] Luke: Yeah.

[00:58:38] Desiree: So you've got to be mindful of what you're eating all the time here too. Plays a big part [Inaudible].

[00:58:44] Luke: I wonder if the part of that dehydration effect is just the ubiquitous radiation in the environment. The number of cell towers here, it's insane.

[00:58:56] Desiree: Well my battery in New Zealand goes flat on my phone quite quickly throughout the day here because it's not having to draw to find 5G everywhere. I can have a full battery almost the whole day.

[00:59:08] Luke: Because it's fully connected. I think that has a lot to do with-- if you think about how you cure meat to preserve meat, you smoke it and dry it out. You want to get the moisture out of it, and that's the radiation from the fire. The radiation in our environment works in a similar way. It's very dehydrating.

[00:59:26] Desiree: Yeah.

[00:59:27] Luke: It might have something to do with that.

[00:59:29] Desiree: And it depends again on our practitioners. Obviously you have to be licensed to recommend certain things here in the United States. But at the end of the day, the hydration and the binders are key. And then based on what the clinic can offer, then they may recommend other things.

[00:59:47] But as a company we obviously have to be very careful what we suggest. And then therefore, other than those two, I just stick with those because they're safe. Because then people don't do things that they shouldn't.

[01:00:00] Luke: Yeah, yeah. I know it's always tricky with the medical claims issue. Oftentimes when I have these conversations with people before and after the mics are on, tell me all of these incredible results people are getting with this and with that. I'm like, "Ah, I wish we could talk about it."

[01:00:16] And I understand there's some regulations that make sense for people's safety and obviously to keep Charltons from selling stuff that is harmful or doesn't work. So I get it, but at the same time, it's very limiting when you find things that do work from well-intentioned people like you, and you're stifled in terms of how you can share about it publicly.

[01:00:40] Desiree: I think nitric oxide is great because that improves the lymphatic permeability of the capillary. I feel that that's a great one too that can really enhance, especially if there's a vascular involvement, from my experience. But at the end of the day, what we are trying to define is, again, coming back to what we spoke earlier, is do you poop? Do you pee? Are you sweating? Because especially as women, we don't like sweating. But it's actually a natural process of the body to eliminate.

[01:01:10] So in my years of when I first started lymphatic drainage, I was a woman that had breast pain two weeks before. I had body odor.

[01:01:20] And the first week of learning this technique over here, I got out of a wire bra because it impedes some of the lymph nodes. I changed my deodorant. So it was completely natural. And I got three sessions of lymphatic drainage, and I kid you not, I never had breast pain again.

[01:01:37] Luke: Really?

[01:01:38] Desiree: And the only time now that I'll have any body odor, and it's usually at a one armpit, is if I'm in a podcast with you, for example. I might notice that I'm a little bit more stressed or sensing something that I'll actually see it. But I don't even use deodorant now.

[01:01:57] Because the thing for me is when you've got your lymphatic system moving and functioning, the reality is when it isn't, you will get body odor. You will get swelling. You will get these buildups. But we've also got to think about things like our clothing. What are we wearing that's impeding our lymphatic flow?

[01:02:16] What is it we are doing day-to-day? How many of us sit at the computer now all day? I would not be surprised if we start to see the link between that and this increase in females' PCOS and the inability to have children, all those sorts of things-- men with erect dysfunction. Because we are sitting so much more than we ever used to, and the lymphatic system will pull. Think of the gravity again. It's falling and sitting just like you are.

[01:02:48] Luke: Right.

[01:02:48] Desiree: We see a lot of change go on. I'll share a funny, funny story. It was when I was very early on, very innocent, and doing this. This woman had had quite severe pelvic issues. She'd had two children. She was hoping to get some pain relief. And after a couple of sessions she was starting to feel really great. She started to have a normal cycle. All of a sudden she's had a cycle which she hadn't had for ages.

[01:03:18] And then she asked me, "Can I ask a really embarrassing question?" And I went, "What's that?" She says, "Is it normal that doing lymphatic drainage can mean that I can orgasm again?" And I was quite innocent, so I blushed and I went, "Well, yeah. Because we're opening up the supply of blood flow. We are moving out the inflammation. We are reducing lymphatics. We're improving the lymphatics functions. Of course it would make sense that yes, you would." She goes, "Oh, because I had the first one in two years."

[01:03:46] Luke: Interesting.

[01:03:47] Desiree: So I've worked with, in many different cases, and around that, especially women, and we see a significant change of moving that pelvic fluid. And the same as with men. I think it's important that we understand that some of our lifestyle choices or work life choices are impeding the way our lymphatic functions, and therefore no different to my analogy of the aquarium without the filter. We are getting this buildup, a byproduct, and the pelvic basin is a perfect area to make that happen.

[01:04:21] Luke: So we've got a couple of different ways to support the lymphatic system. We talked about dry skin brushing, obviously just moving, using something like a rebounder, vibration plates, using the rebounder the right way, which I don't like because it's not as fun. After you told me that, I tried it a couple of times.

[01:04:39] I was like, "I don't know. This feels weird. I need to be getting some air." But I'm going to try again. I've had I think on at least one, if not a couple of occasions, a lymphatic drainage treatment that involves some suction device or something that was run up and down my body. What is that? Am I imagining that that's what was happening?

[01:05:01] Desiree: Well, there's a few different lots of tech. There's ones that use electrostatic energy, so it's like a glass bulb to create little stimuli under the skin. There was one that I'm not sure if it's still around, but it used to roll, so it would suck up the skin and then roll through. Endermology was what that was called.

[01:05:18] So in the lymphedema world, we can use gloves. They have a frequency that are going through them to help move the lymphatics. So there's quite a few different things a tick around now that can help. And it's usually requiring a technician or a therapist to actually deliver it.

[01:05:37] Luke: Right. You being the purveyor of Flowpresso, I'm assuming you have a unit at home. Have you managed to get yourself in it and run it yourself, or do you--

[01:05:46] Desiree: Absolutely.

[01:05:47] Luke: You do?

[01:05:47] Desiree: Yeah.

[01:05:48] Luke: Oh, that must be cool.

[01:05:49] Desiree: Yeah. It's a little bit of thinking outside the square how to do it. But you can. There's just a process. It's quite easy once you know how to do it. You've got some stuff pre-unplugged and ready to go, and the machine's obviously all set and close enough. You hit the button, and pretty much you put your feet, your legs on, and it's got to take time to come through.

[01:06:09] So we're at 130 millimeter per mercury, and at the time that we do on the unit is based on the amount of time that we want to deliver that to you. So we are basing it always on you as the individual, not just a standard protocol, because I want this to be your experience to your body and how you feel. It takes time to build up. So by the time that's happening, you've laid down. You've put the abdomen piece on, you slide the arms in, and then, yeah, nighty night.

[01:06:35] Luke: Wow. I feel like I would be doing that a lot. It was so relaxing. I know there's a heat element in your technology, and as I said, that beautiful wave feeling as it's moving through the body. Was there some frequency element to that, or am I imagining that?

[01:06:53] Desiree: No, no, no. That's correct. So I worked with an engineer who has been involved in developing technologies, ex-military here, for arthritis and joint pain, etc. And he had another one that was a lot stronger, and I asked if I could test it. It took me a couple of years, and we were testing it for pain more than anything because my thing, again, was the shoulders and the neck have always been an issue for so many people.

[01:07:20] We were finding that if you put this particular, we call it the chip, onto the body, I had a guy that was using a walking stick and all of a sudden he wasn't using it again. Wouldn't give it back to me, and they were very expensive. So long story short, we started to go, well, I want to put that into the back piece so that I can help people's discomfort again to try and encourage that overall movement through the chest wall.

[01:07:47] And after a couple of years, yeah, he agreed. We've got the proprietary rights. And so we used that. But what was more fascinating is we were doing some EEG testing to see what was going on to the brain because of the results. People would feel like they lose all track of time in the suit. They feel like they have these spiritual experiences.

[01:08:06] They have such clarity, and they think they're not sleeping, but we hear them snoring, and they feel like they're wide awake. So we started to know what was doing to the brain. So we had the tech running, and we were watching this artifact. And then, of course, once you turn it off, the artifact should stop.

[01:08:25] It didn't. It kept producing the artifact in the brain. And this thing oscillates on an audio level, so the heat of the body stimulates what's in the chip to actually activate to create these atoms to collide, to send out. And it's in a particular range. It's quite an extreme range.

[01:08:44] So your body never gets used to it because there's just too much going on. But the more we can study-- he's doing some work for us now to actually do a lot of testing around this for us to show. Because with FDA and those situations, you can't declare it because it's not tangible.

[01:09:03] There's not enough research or technology in the system that you can recognize with, and that's our biggest challenges with that one. So for now we're just using it more to reduce the pain in there, but we do know it has some impact on the way your experiences within the--

[01:09:20] Luke: In the EEG, were you seeing an increase in theta brainwaves?

[01:09:25] Desiree: Yes.

[01:09:25] Luke: Interesting. That's my favorite brainwave.

[01:09:29] Desiree: Yeah.

[01:09:30] Luke: I love that feeling in a deep meditation. There's all kinds of things in this house that assist me in getting in that place, and that's, I think, my whole life, that you're not awake, but you're not asleep. That daydream feeling, that's just such a sweet spot for me.

[01:09:47] Desiree: Yeah. We are not doing it enough, and it is a very restorative place to be in from a recovery point of view.

[01:09:55] Luke: With the frequency element, this chip you described that goes on the back, that's not-- what's the carrier wave? It's not like a PEMF thing. It's a much more subtle realm of frequency.

[01:10:08] Desiree: Very subtle.

[01:10:09] Luke: Got it. Okay.

[01:10:10] Desiree: Yeah. And that's why this guy's ahead of his time, I think. He's helped me develop a necklace. I'm actually wearing one, and it's got 432 hertz.

[01:10:23] Luke: Oh, cool.

[01:10:24] Desiree: And so you wear it close to the heart so that the idea was that we can come more into the heart but also be very much connected to earth. It's a beautiful frequency to be part of. So he is a very clever man. And so yeah, I'm looking forward. I wish I could say something, but he is underway with this research to be able to-- and once everyone understands what it is, they go, "Oh." That'll make total sense. So he has been able to prove it, but now he's putting it into some research so we can actually make the claim.

[01:10:53] Luke: Oh, cool. And what was the thought process going the FDA-cleared medical device route versus home user experience that anyone could just get one and do it themselves?

[01:11:07] Desiree: Well, the main reason we did it, to be honest, was we were seeing these profound impacts on people. And so you want to be sure that people are cared for and looked after during that. So whether it was chronic illness all through to emotional trauma, people do have experiences in the suit.

[01:11:27] They can be very spiritual, or they can be very emotional. So you want someone there to care for them. And that's one of the reasons we went down this pathway. And it was not easy, I must admit. I don't know if you know, but FDA's only just gone electronic as of end of last year.

[01:11:46] So anytime I made a change, I'd have to feed them through another massive stack of paperwork, and I'd have to send a USB in. I'll never forget, I had, for example, 11 dot, and then the name of the file. But I put a space between the name and the dot, and it was sent back to me and told that I had to resend it back and done correctly.

[01:12:08] Luke: Bureaucracy, man.

[01:12:09] Desiree: It was mind blowing, but to be fair to them, towards the end, they became significantly helpful to give me insight to what I needed to do to complete and what research, etc. So I feel very lucky that I got the right person in the end that was prepared to give me just that little bit more insight so I could complete the process.

[01:12:32] But it's very extensive. So we've done everything from working with a company here in the US called NAMSA that we got all our material tested for toxicology, for flammability, for even in vitros. If you happen to be pregnant and we didn't know, we knew baby was safe

[01:12:49] Luke: Oh, right, right.

[01:12:50] Desiree: Through to very increased or very thorough testing of the machine, how it works, and the safety and efficiency. Because really, that's what it comes down to, safety and efficacy. And so by the time you do all that, and then these screeds and screeds of paperwork, I think there was, by the end of the submission, something up to about 368 pages of information that we had to deliver on.

[01:13:16] It was quite a journey. I wouldn't recommend anyone to take it on. But then I'm saying that I feel like I could write the dummies guide now of how to do it. So been a little bit easier for people because I think it's more understanding the process, and what I know now, I would do different next time because I understand it more efficiently now than ever.

[01:13:39] But we were relying on an agency to start with because we were very naive to the process. Whereas now I understand how I would do it. It'll be a lot easier, I feel. Because you know what steps to take initially because they do actually have this process called a Q-Sub where you can go in and prepare a document, say what you'd like to do, and then ask them for feedback. And they will actually give you the feedback on the type of research you'll need to do to be able to be recognized for the certain claims you make.

[01:14:08] Luke: If someone's in relatively good health and they're able to find a Flowpresso practitioner nearby, what would be a good schedule of treatment? Is this something you might want to do once a month or get in there three times a week for 90 days and then take a break? What would you recommend, again, as a general recommendation for your average person who's not dealing with anything significantly challenging health wise?

[01:14:35] Desiree: We always say for that first group, do one a week for three. You want to get that lymphatic system moving. You're waking it up is how I describe it and get the flow going, get things moving. And that's when you see change to your sleep, as we've said, the stress, the anxiety. You feel lighter.

[01:14:52] You feel like you can analyze your life. You're not in it anymore. You're more external to it, so you can make better choices. And I find that that's probably one of the better ways to do it. But we usually only do one a week, or we need at least three to four days space between each session because that gives time for the body to readjust to what you've tried to change. And then it creates a new normal, as I say.

[01:15:17] Because otherwise, if you do it every day, you will detox. You will have quite a hoax response. And sometimes I feel like that's not appropriate unless you are traveling from out of town and usually you are with clinics that know how to manage that. So they're hydrating you, making sure you're eliminating, all those sorts of things. So yeah, that's our recommendation.

[01:15:34] Luke: Well, Freddy is the only person I know locally that has one of these. I think he has a couple. Alyson and I were at his house one night, and I think he had us both at the same time in separate rooms. And I was like, "Oh, man." But he lives far from here. But I clocked it, and I was like, "I'm going to come back and do this a few times." And then I have it. Now he has this beautiful sauna there, a wood-fired sauna. He has so many great wellness spa tools.

[01:15:59] Desiree: You can do via stacking there now. You've got it. You can go from--

[01:16:01] Luke: Yeah. So this been inspiring to get over there. Next thing I want to talk about is you do have a couple consumer products now, which you sent me recently, and for those watching the video, one of them is rather innocent looking little ball about the size of a baseball, and it looks like the Death Star in Star Wars.

[01:16:26] And then it vibrates with different sequences, and you're going to explain what we can do with this. Alyson was excited to try this one out. And then the other one, for those watching, is a wand with a little bit of a head on it. And a funny thing happened with this when I unpacked it in the mail.

[01:16:42] I knew that it had something to do with lymph because it was from you, but I had it plugged in the kitchen island to charge up, and then the maids came. And I was here by myself, and there's two female housekeepers, and I saw this sex toy looking thing on the island, and I got embarrassed and went and grabbed it.

[01:16:58] And then she saw that I grabbed it, and it got really awkward. And I would've tried to have used broken Spanish to go, it's not for sexo. I just ran out of the room. I was like, "Okay, I'm going to awkward it out." But for people that want to work on their lymph and aren't in a position to be able to see a practitioner, tell me about these two, what their purpose is, and how one might use them.

[01:17:20] Desiree: Yeah. I think one of the biggest challenges is manual lymphatic drainage for self-care. People don't know which way to go, and they get lost, and it gets too hard, so they don't do it. And even in our suits, we don't have anything covering the cervical nodes. So that was really important.

[01:17:36] We were talking earlier about the glymphatics. It drains into the cervical nodes. You want this area clearing sinuses, etc. And so that's what came out of the flow vibrate. And yes, when I made it, I didn't think about that it would have this kind of look.

[01:17:50] Luke: It does.

[01:17:51] Desiree: But I've come to say to everyone, I'm all about the flow. You do you, whatever that looks like. But really, the reason this particular head was designed this way was so it could maneuver around the face. So the great thing about this is it has three different vibrations. So it's basically light, medium, strong. And the strong you'd never do around your face. It's too strong. It's more for your abdominal area. And so the idea is that you are following the pathways of lymphatics. It's the lazy person's gua sha.

[01:18:22] Luke: Oh, okay. And the neck on that, for lack of a better term, is flexible. So it's going to follow the contour of your jaw.

[01:18:29] Desiree: Exactly. And it's not supposed to be pushed really hard. It's supposed to glide over the skin because you want the vibration to have time to create that microcirculation. You want to create the stimuli. And so this one became very popular very quickly. Actually, we've been selling this for two years, and it's been surprising. We have people using it now for TMJ, speech therapists. It's also being used for stimulating the vagus nerve. A lot of people are using it for the beauty side of it, get rid of the puff, the dark rings under the eyes and the swelling, etc.

[01:19:06] But we've also created a whole lot of videos to show you how to use it for the breast tissue or the arm area, also the abdominal and the legs. So it's not limited to just the face, but it was designed because we did not have anything. So often the clinics might do a little bit for you while you're lying in the suit, while you're waiting for the session to be-- because what we try and do is work out, are these pressures correct for you?

[01:19:31] And we take you through two or three cycles before we will leave or put headphones on, cover your eyes with an eye mask, and then leave you to just drift. And then, of course, people buy them so that they can do the self-care. But one of the other areas that we identified in the suit that we didn't have was the armpits, so the axilla. There's so much that goes on in that area, and that's a big hub of where they take lymph nodes if you've had breast cancer.

[01:19:55] And so for me, that's been predominantly a lot of my work, was working in the breast cancer industry, was wanting to make sure that we could do something for our armpits where we didn't have to do a lot of work, and we could literally hold them in there. And so we will do that in clinic often where we'll have those in your armpits operating while you're in the suit. So we are getting extra drainage occurring.

[01:20:17] But I'll admit, I was also making it for myself. When you get those little pressure points, you just want to be able to have something maneuver, especially around the shoulder area. So that one's got vibration, but it's also got oscillation and pulse. So that's where it's really good for things like arthritis. You can hold it in the hands, plantar fasciitis. You can be rubbing it on your foot. And it's so strong that if I turned it on now, I can guarantee that downstairs someone will feel it. It does have quite a strength.

[01:20:49] Luke: I'm going to turn it on.

[01:20:50] Desiree: Yeah. So if you put it on the floor and put your foot under it, you'll actually-- yeah.

[01:20:55] Luke: There. They can hear it. I have it on the third, the pulsing one.

[01:20:58] Desiree: Yeah. And so it's about breaking up fascia. So we've had some really cool results around hypertonic pelvic. See.

[01:21:06] Luke: Oh my God, it's vibrating the whole floor.

[01:21:08] Desiree: Yeah. It's strong.

[01:21:08] Luke: I'm so glad I didn't try these out until you got here. I was like, "She made them. I'm going to get from the horse's mouth, the real deal on how to use them."

[01:21:15] Desiree: So it's great for those sore feet at the end of the day if you stand all day, and you can really get into those reflexology points.

[01:21:20] Luke: That feels good. I'm not just saying that because you're here. That feels really nice.

[01:21:27] Desiree: I know. We've just completed a whole lot more videos on how to use this because we had-- one of our amazing outcomes that we've had in subsequently learning more about is for pelvic issues. So people on continence or pain, having it near the perineum or on the sit bones, you are releasing all tension through the pelvic area. So it's been proved to be quite useful for many things. So we're quite excited about where it's been heading because we've been getting some great feedback.

[01:21:56] Luke: And I apologize for calling it the Death Star because it's good for you. We'll call it the Life Star.

[01:22:02] Desiree: Oh, we've got it nicknamed the Death Star. It's fine. It does look like something out of the star.

[01:22:07] Luke: This is the one that you are using under the arm?

[01:22:09] Desiree: Yes. It feels amazing.

[01:22:11] Luke: Wow. How cool.

[01:22:12] Desiree: So the great thing was then you could have that under your armpit, and then you could be doing the breast tissue with the wand or the Flow Vibrate. And so then that way you could actually achieve a lot more in a short period of time because people are time poor.

[01:22:28] And if they know that they can do their lymphatic system at home with something that they don't have to overthink-- because when you're doing hand work, you do have to know which direction you need to send the fluid. Whereas when you are using vibration, it's all about creating the stimulation. So we do try to teach you which way to go, but if you'd got it wrong, it's not going to cause anything major.

[01:22:50] Luke: Wow. Super cool. I'm so glad you sent these to me. I'm going to really have fun with these. That on my feet felt really nice.

[01:22:57] Desiree: Yeah, yeah.

[01:22:58] Luke: And it's cool because I have one of these hyper vault vibrating massage guns, but you have to hold it.

[01:23:05] Desiree: Yeah.

[01:23:06] Luke: I'm just chilling on my chairs, rolling my foot on this. Sound really nice. Jarrod, you could probably hear it in the mic, right? If it wasn't that loud, I would just sit here doing podcasts with that thing on. I was like, "Wow, this is very relaxing."

[01:23:18] Desiree: And it's great behind the knees because you have the pulpal nodes behind the knees, and of course a lot of people get quite rigid in their knee area, especially arthritis and that. So yeah, you can just even sit in front of TV with it behind your knees as well.

[01:23:29] Luke: Epic. And for people that want to check those particular devices out-- of course, practitioners can go to your site and get the whole system and adopt that into their practice. And for civilians like me that want these more portable versions, flowpressousa.com, and you'll get 10 bucks off if you use the code LUKE for people that want to check that out too.

[01:23:52] Desiree: Yeah, so we have an Instagram called Flow at Home, and so the idea is there's stuff in there as well to learn that can help you. On YouTube, we have them as well, a whole lot of how-to videos so you can-- because I think that's important, that when you put a bit of tech out, people need to know how to use it, get the most out of it.

[01:24:07] Luke: Yeah, exactly. I didn't know you had the videos, and I knew you were coming over here, so I could just ask you, but I'm like, "I don't know. I don't want to use it wrong, break it, or do something counterproductive."

[01:24:16] Desiree: We'll do some demonstrations afterwards.

[01:24:18] Luke: Yeah. Then I've just got to hide it when people that don't know me are over.

[01:24:22] Desiree: Well, we have people on airlines using them now. It is so funny. There's photos of people on the airline doing-- because when you're flying it does really affect your sinuses. So a lot of practitioners now are just using them, and we have wholesale, affiliate codes, and everything as well for clinics as well so that they can--

[01:24:40] Luke: Oh, cool.

[01:24:41] Desiree: Stock the product. And again, it's just trying to help people do more for their lymph. And as I said earlier, we're time poor. So if you're watching a movie and you're still just sitting there, you can at least do your lymph while you're watching it. So you're stacking.

[01:24:54] Luke: I love that. I'm all about stacking and multitasking. Yeah. That's the thing. You only have so many hours in a day when it comes to self-care and just wellness practices. If each thing takes 10 or 20 minutes and you can only do one at a time, you're only going to do one a day probably if you're lucky. But if there's a few, you can do at the same time. That's why in the sauna, I just have adopted skin brushing the wrong way incidentally. But at least I'm doing it. But yeah, I'm sitting in there anyway. So I'll put DMSO on and magnesium oil and just do as many things as I can to maximize that 10, 15 minutes that I'm in there.

[01:25:31] Desiree: Yeah.

[01:25:31] Luke: That's very cool. I felt like there was something else I wanted to ask you that was really important. Oh my God, it slipped my mind. And then the minute we stop, I'm going to remember. Maybe I'll remember. Maybe I won't. If not, I'll ask you when we're done. So I'll ask you this as one last question while maybe my brain kicks back into gear. Who have been three teachers or teachings that have influenced your life that you'd like to share with us? Who has made you who you are?

[01:26:03] Desiree: Wow. There's been so many. Probably one of the most profound was this [Inaudible] Charmaine. She was very pivotal in me understanding Maori medicine and more importantly the spiritual side of it and understanding that there's way more to someone than just their physical body.

[01:26:23] And then I trained in my ortho-bionomy. The gentleman there actually taught me how to work with horses because they can't speak. And I'll never forget learning how powerful that can be when you've not got the talk going on, when you've not got the noise around you. And I'll still never forget the day that he would teach us to hold the reign with our little finger because it's your heart meridian, for anyone that does acupuncture or shiatsu.

[01:26:53] And so we would hold the reign, and then he'd teach you to non-communicate. You're not talking. You're actually trying to communicate with the horse. And this horse kissed me on the side of the face, and I did that double take. I looked at it, and I went, "Nah, I'm just, I'm seeing things." And I went, "But I'd like another one." And he kissed me again.

[01:27:17] Luke: Wow.

[01:27:17] Desiree: So you learn through touch of an animal. We do this heart sacrum where you lay your hand on their chest wall, and then you put it right at the back of the body to try and envisage, and you do what they call a figure eight.

[01:27:31] And if you do it on children, they will literally just almost go to sleep on you. But you do it on a horse, it creates quite an interesting impact. And they almost fall over. And just understanding energy. The greatest that was huge for me to be able to really-- you feel and you think you know, but you don't know.

[01:27:51] And then probably the third one would be a surgeon called Dr. Beth Dupree here in the United States. In my earlier years of teaching here, she let me come in and watch breast cancer surgeries. That was profound because not only did I observe what happened and how it happens, because I could then help my clients more efficiently, but she actually let me hold lymph nodes.

[01:28:17] Luke: Oh, wow.

[01:28:18] Desiree: And as a teacher, you want to know what you're talking about. So for me, that was profound to actually know that is how it felt, and therefore when I was teaching, I could actually show people with confidence that it is.

[01:28:32] Luke: That's beautiful. Are lymph nodes, when they're out of the body, anything like that type of seaweed that has a string and then a little ball?

[01:28:41] Desiree: Yeah.

[01:28:42] Luke: That's how I picture them in the body.

[01:28:44] Desiree: Yeah. We call it bladder rack in New Zealand.

[01:28:46] Luke: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bladder rack. Yeah, exactly. Is that what they're like?

[01:28:50] Desiree: Yeah.

[01:28:50] Luke: Oh, interesting.

[01:28:50] Desiree: This was more of a cluster of flesh because they were only doing that sentinel node biopsy at the time. It was [Inaudible] in there. I always say they're a little bit like a pea that's defrosted and you squish. But actually, the great thing is it does rebound. So I think that's where you get that. Just understand them, and you can feel them.

[01:29:14] A lot of people, you can feel them on the inside of their necks, and then you can teach. And so then someone's really getting to understand how to do that hand technique more efficiently if they know what they can feel is actually the lymph nodes.

[01:29:28] Luke: I remembered my last question, thankfully. Because I can't stand when that happens. And then you'll be driving away. I'm like, "Ah, there it is." Too late. I'm always working on air travel to make it suck less, because it just annihilates me every time. One of the things I heard was if you wear compression socks and a compression shirt, that it is helpful.

[01:29:50] And so I've been doing that for years, and I find it is helpful because the times that I forget, I feel worse. So maybe some placebo, maybe some science. What do you know about compression clothing in general and specifically as it pertains to flying? Why would that be helpful?

[01:30:08] Desiree: Well, to be fair, I learned the same thing. I was traveling here to the states. One of my flights alone is 11 hours.

[01:30:15] Luke: Oof.

[01:30:15] Desiree: So for me, I started to see that, yeah, it was knocking me around a lot more, but when I wore full compression, so I wear full compression pants, not so much the chest but the pants that I noticed a significant difference in how I could just get here and get on with the day kind of thing.

[01:30:33] And so there's a bit of research in the lymphedema world, but depends which paper you read. Most of them will say it will minimize the amount of swelling that will occur. And when you think about it, that pressure of the cabin is causing that increase of fluid.

[01:30:52] So if we can create some compression where we are naturally-- and we're sitting for so long, especially when you're doing an 11-hour flight, you can get up only so many times. So for me, the compression plays an incredible part, but it's also being used not just in flight. Sports people are using it now, and they're seeing an improved recovery from the lactic acid because it's all about moving those fluids.

[01:31:16] Personally, I wear them not just flying now. I will wear them if I'm going to be standing all day or I know I'm up for a big week, especially if I've got lots on, or if I'm sitting too much. If I know I'm going to be stuck in a computer, I'll wear compression pants because it actually helps keep my fluid moving when I'm stagnant or sitting still.

[01:31:36] Luke: It's counterintuitive. You would think that it would be cutting off the flow of fluids being tighter. It's very counterintuitive.

[01:31:45] Desiree: It depends on the type of compression. You do have to get specifically compression technology pants, not just a pair of tight pants.

[01:31:54] Luke: Skinny jeans.

[01:31:55] Desiree: Yeah, no. Because the material's designed-- actually any movement you make, it'll stretch and move and create a pulse. So it's actually designed to create a movement in the body, but also stop you from swelling more. It does keep you tight and snug to avoid the increase of fluid. But when you do move, there's even kinesiotaping. Certain taps that you can do in every movement you make, it's creating a little bit of a shift in the lymphatics.

[01:32:25] Luke: Perfect. I'm glad I remember that. I'm going to keep doing it then. And thanks for the reminder that it's not only effective on a plane, because there have been couple of times where I had a speaking engagement when I knew I was going to be on my feet and talking to people and doing that, and I've worn the socks and find that my feet actually get sore less, which, again, to me, is counterintuitive. I'm like, "Shouldn't they be cramped and sore more?" I guess it's keeping that swelling down.

[01:32:49] Desiree: Yeah. And movement. It's creating that little micro movement for you. So while you're standing and you can't, it's doing a little bit for you. So yeah, it depends again on the tech. But there's some really cool stuff that have come out now. Company called Elastic, and they have even little micro pearls, and so that's great for women with cellulite to get that-- and so if you deal with lymphedema, we actually bind you in something that has these little squares of foam to try and break through the interstitial and to create bigger compression.

[01:33:18] So the more and more we see this come out, as long as it's good quality product, then you will actually see a benefit from it, whether you are sitting around or whether you're in a flight.

[01:33:30] Luke: Epic. Now someone just needs to come out with a compression technology clothing that isn't made of plastic.

[01:33:36] Desiree: There you go. Yeah. That would be great.

[01:33:38] Luke: That's the only thing that sucks. Everything out there that I've found it's just like God knows what for the endocrine system. So you're getting a benefit, but it's not perfect because there's a downside to it too.

[01:33:49] Desiree: Freddy keeps hassling me to do that next project.

[01:33:52] Luke: Oh, really? Oh. So I'm not the first genius that thought of that. Okay. But how great would that be? I'm sure it exists. It's in hemp or something. There has to be a way to do it without wearing a bunch of plastic on your body.

[01:34:04] Desiree: Yeah, that would be the best.

[01:34:06] Luke: Epic. All right. Well, thank you for coming all the way from New Zealand. I know you didn't just come here to talk to me, but--

[01:34:11] Desiree: I came to Austin.

[01:34:12] Luke: Yeah. You did? Okay, I'll take it. I'll take it. Because we are in the middle of nowhere in terms of the geography here. Well, thank you so much. It's great to get to spend some more time with you after our first meeting. And yeah, I just love your passion for this particular niche topic that is more important I think now than we realize. And thank you for making cool stuff and putting it out in the world.

[01:34:34] Desiree: Thank you. And thank you for the opportunity to be here, Luke. I really appreciate it.