Transcription
Hello, my name is Matthew Hunter with Legacy Wilderness Academy. And in this video, I'm going to show you how to use this common medicinal herb to flush and cleanse the lymphatic system, promoting gentle yet effective detoxification and drainage of the lymph, which can help clear up swollen lymph nodes in the neck, armpits, groin, breast, etc., and also help promote clearer and healthier skin.
I'll be showing you how to make an herbal juice with this plant, which can be taken internally, as well as an infused herbal oil, which can be applied topically to help resolve lymph node swelling. We'll also be discussing some of the most common causes of lymph node swelling, what it could mean when you find a swollen lymph node somewhere on your body, and warning signs that indicate a swollen lymph node could be something more serious. Stay tuned.
So, first, let's look at our plant. This plant is called goose grass or cleavers and it's really a very useful plant when it comes to detoxification of the body and particularly of the lymphatic system. It's a common weed that grows around the world. It can actually be found widespread throughout large parts of the United States, especially in the eastern US and along the Pacific coast states. It's widespread throughout Western Europe and it grows in southeast Australia and New Zealand and in Eastern uh Asia, places like Taiwan, Korea and Japan and also in other temporary areas around the world. So really has like almost worldwide distribution.
And this plant has a long history of use in herbal medicine dating back to at least 2,000 years ago when it was used in ancient Greece for swollen glands on the neck or swollen lymph nodes. From there, we have records of it being used all the way up through the Middle Ages. Uh, from there into the 1800s and all the way up into the modern day. People are still using it.
Cleavers are super easy for beginners to identify. One of the funnest things about them is that they stick to clothing when you throw them at people. So, that's always fun. You can have cleaver fights with your kids when you find them. And so, they have sort of rough hairs on them that make them stick to things. They also have square stems. So that's a good ID feature. When you roll them in between your fingers, you can feel those square stems. Then their leaves are very distinct because they come out in what we call in botany whirls. Okay? So these whirled leaves means that we have clusters of leaves that come out at the same place along the stem. As you can see here, the flowers of this species of cleavers, which by the way is known scientifically as gallium aparene, are small, white, and have four petals. and then eventually form little seed pods which are spherical. They're produced in pears and they're covered in velcrolike hairs. And in my area, this is one of the first plants to pop up in spring. I typically harvest it in the month of March where I'm at, preferably before it goes to seed is when you want to get it.
Also, I want to mention that if you live in the southeastern US and want to learn more about medicinal plants, I actually have a free guide to medicinal plants of the southeast, which you can find in the link in the description below this video. So, after this video, make sure to check that out.
Next, let's look at the lymphatic system. So, the lymphatic system is part of the immune system, and it's made up of a network of interconnected tissues that move lymphatic fluid throughout the body. So, similar to the way the circulatory system moves blood throughout the body, the lymphatic system moves lymph throughout the body. Then we have these little clusters of lymphatic tissue which are about the size of maybe just like a bean. Real small little clusters. They're called the lymph nodes. And what they're responsible for is sort of housing these um congregations of white blood cells or lymphosytes. Okay.
So, the lymphatic system has a number of important functions. There's two I want to talk about in this video. The first function which we'll talk about here in a moment is that the lymphatic system facilitates waste removal and it should say waste and fluid removal from the tissues. And then the second thing we'll talk about first here is that the lymph nodes themselves act sort of as security checkpoints for pathogens. So we have these uh white blood cells all kind of hanging out in the lymph nodes. And when a a virus or bacteria uh makes its way into the lymph nodes, they sort of act as a filter and they trap that bacteria or the virus and then they start mounting an offense against it. So the the lymphosytes or the white blood cells start to multiply and start to sort of mount their offensive and get ready to uh to attack that pathogen.
So, uh, the majority of the time when you find a swollen lymph node somewhere on your body, you know, maybe it just it doubles in size or it gets a little bit tender, a little painful and you can kind of feel it somewhere in your neck or your armpit. Um, most of the time that is a sign that your body is fighting off some sort of infection. However, in rare cases, it can be a sign of cancer.
So, next let's look at a few warning signs that a swollen lymph node could be something more serious. So, we'll move through these quickly. Number one, if a lymph node has been swollen for longer than two weeks, generally recommended to get it looked at by a doctor, although sometimes they can be swollen for longer than that. Number two, if the lymph node has grown larger than about 2 cm, which is about the length of the tip of your pinky or about the size of a kidney bean. Once it gets past that size, you know, maybe you start to uh kind of pay attention to it. If the lymph node feels hard and fixed in place, that's generally not a good sign. A lymph node when swollen and healthy should have a rubbery texture and you should be able to move it underneath your skin to some extent and it shouldn't feel fixed in place. Hey, number four, building on that, if the lymph node has a rocky or gritty texture, generally not a good sign. And also if it's lumpy or asymmetrical, that could be a sign that more than one lymph node is swollen. So generally something you want to look out for and see a doctor if you find those symptoms. And then lastly, if the lymph node is associated with persistent fever, uh fatigue, night sweats, itchy skin, or unexplained weight loss of about 10% or more of your weight over a six-month period, those are some warning signs of lymphoma. So you want to pay very close attention to those. Now obviously if you, you know, if you're down with a flu and you get a swollen lymph node, maybe you have some fatigue, some, you know, some night sweats, some fever, that's, you know, that's to be expected. But if those symptoms last longer than the illness and continue to persist, that's when it becomes a warning sign.
Lastly, before we get to the medicine making portion of this video, I want to talk about some of Cleaver's other medicinal uses. So, like I said, cleavers can be used to help resolve a swollen lymph node as long as you know that that lymph node is benign. Can be applied topically in the form of an oil, which I'm going to show you how to make, and also taken internally to help facilitate and increase lymphatic flow. Because of its lymph moving properties, cleavers is in a class of herbs known as alteratives. So alternatives are metabolic tonics that gently enhance the body's normal eliminatory functions, facilitating waste removal and enhancing the body's ability to heal and function properly. And I had mentioned that the lymphatic system is responsible for removing waste and fluid from the tissues throughout the body because it enhances that function. Cleaver is often used when working with chronic skin conditions. So that's one of its main uses. It's also useful in lympadeema and it's also very helpful in fibrocystic breast disease which is not really a disease but refers to the fluid fil cysts that can form in the breast and related to that the oil is very useful for tender painful or lumpy breasts associated with hormone fluctuations. So besides just being a general spring tonic detox plant, uh these are a few specific conditions that often respond well to cleaver preparations.
So cleavers is a plant that tends to lose a lot of its medicinal potency when dried. So one of the best ways to prepare it is by making a fresh herbal juice. To do this, I'm going to add some cleaver to a blender with a little bit of water at the bottom to get it started. Then I'll keep adding a handful at a time and blending as I go. Once I'm done, I'll go ahead and strain out the juice through a nutmilk bag, making sure to squeeze out every drop. And so to preserve this, we have a couple options. One option is to freeze the juice into ice cubes. So I'll go ahead and show you how to do that. And whenever you want to take some, you can thaw out one of these ice cubes in a glass of water and sip it throughout the day.
Our next option is to preserve the juice with alcohol. This is going to make the juice shelf stable at room temperature. So, here we have some 190 proof or 95% drinking alcohol. In other words, alcohol that you would buy at the liquor store that's safe for human consumption. And we're going to add enough that our finished product is about 25% or so alcohol. And because this is Everclear, it's almost pure alcohol at 95%. We'll just round up to 100% and do our math that way. So to know how much to add uh to this juice to make the final product about 25% alcohol, we'll measure the amount of juice we have and divide that number by three. And so here we have about 250 milliliters of juice. And when we divide that by 3, we get 83. And so that's how many milliliters of alcohol we need to add. And we'll go ahead and add it in. Give it a good stir. Next, we're going to let this sit for about a day to settle. Then, once it's settled, we'll pour off the top part and then strain the rest through a coffee filter to get out all the sludge. Now, we can store it at room temperature out of direct sunlight. And a dosage for something like this would be about two to four dropper fulls two or three times per day.
Next, let's look at how to make an infused herbal oil for topical application. So, the first thing we're going to do is give these cleavers a 24-hour wilt to drive out some of the moisture. We want to use them fresh, but having too much water in them can make our oil go bad. So, after letting them sit on the counter for 24 hours, next I'm going to chop them up and add them to a jar. And we'll pour in our oil. So, any type of vegetable oil or even animal fat can be used for making herbal oils. For vegetable oils, organic oil is preferred to ensure that it doesn't have any pesticides in it. And for this video, I used grape seed oil. So, if you're making it from home, there's no need to measure exact amounts here. Just try to make it as strong as possible. Next, I'm going to set this jar in a crock pot and turn it on warm. And this oil sat in the crock pot for about 3 or 4 days. And I turn my crock pot off at night just to be safe. And after that, we can strain the oil just like we strain the juice through a nutmilk bag. And we're finished. Now, if you want at this point, you can add some beeswax to this oil to harden it. And to do that, you would add about one part beeswax to four or five parts oil. So, now that we're done, we can go ahead and bottle this up and apply it topically as needed.
Well, guys, I hope you enjoyed the video. Thanks for watching. And don't forget to get my free guide on medicinal plants in the link in the description below. And if you want to learn about another plant that's really good at moving the lymph, you can click on the video that's popping up on the screen right now. Have a great day. >> I'm not good.