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GUEST EXPERTS
The Fascia-Lymph-Liver Matrix - A
User’s Guide Masterclass Sinclair
Kennally, CNHP, CNC
Click here to watch this interview!

Understanding the Roadmap

to Health Peter Kan, DC, DACNB,
FAAIM, CFMP
Click here to watch this interview!

Fascia: What You Need to Know

Sue Hitzmann, MS, CST, NMT
Click here to watch this interview!

We’re happy that you’re taking time to From the entire The Fascia and Chronic
learn about living a healthier and happier Pain Rescue Summit team, thank you for
life, and we hope you’ll make us a regular downloading these transcripts -- we hope
part of that journey! you learn a lot from them!
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The Fascia-Lymph-Liver
Matrix: A User’s Guide
Masterclass
Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC

Sinclair Kennally: Welcome to The Fascia-Lymph- that fascia injuries are contributing to your health
Liver Matrix - A User’s Guide: Masterclass. I am issues. It’s for you, if you’re achy, sore, and tired,
Sinclair Kennally, CNHP, CNC. And I’m so excited and you have no idea why, and you’re on the
to take you through this, and to help empower hunt for answers. And it’s also for you if you have
you on your journey back to health. So let’s go chronic health issues, and you suspect chronic
ahead and get started, I’m going to share my stagnation is a key part of your health picture.
screen. I prepared a bunch of slides to help And if you do, then you’re really, really smart,
illustrate what we’re really talking about today.  because it’s probably true. 

So, first, a little bit about me and what qualifies
me to help share this information for you. One of
the things that I like to admit right away is that I’m
very much a reluctant health pioneer and activist.
While I am an award winning expert on chronic
digestive and liver conditions, and resolving
long standing chronic health issues, I started
out in mental health and I had my own health
crisis that took many, many years to resolve.
And I became so passionate about sharing the
tools that we found along the way that I actually
expanded it to physical health. And that’s true of
all of our practitioners in our practice at Detox
RejuveNation . 
TM
So I’m a survivor of complex chronic illnesses,
including Lyme, Hashimoto’s, fibromyalgia, SIBO,
Epstein Barr, mold and heavy metal poisoning,
and severe depression, as well as ADHD. So I’m
a host of the Detox to Thrive podcast, you can
always find me there, but let’s dive in and talk
about you.  our food. What has shifted is that we now actually
So this is for you, if you already know or suspect
So I want to zoom out for a second and talk about
why it’s so important to understand the fascia-
lymph-liver matrix today, more than ever before.
And this one statistic can really help explain this.
So 4% of the population of American adults were
chronically ill or considered chronically ill in 1960,
versus 6 out of 10 American adults who have a
diagnosed chronic illness today. And that doesn’t
count all of us that spent years in the making,
undiagnosed mystery patient X, nobody could
figure out what was going on with us until we
finally got sick enough to merit a diagnosis.
Or for those of you that are really aware that your
health is a serious issue, and it’s impacting your
ability to live fully but you don’t have a name for
it and a label for it yet. It doesn’t even count that.
So what are we going to do about it? If we look at
this systemically, we look at what has shifted over
the last few decades, what has shifted is the way
that we actually grow our food, that we process
import 250 pounds of chemicals per person per
day into the US.

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That does not count herbicides and pesticides,
it does not count fuel; it does not count
pharmaceuticals. So if that’s the case, what is it
that we’re importing? We’re importing personal
care stuff, industrial toxins for processing, and
it’s getting into our food, air, and water, and it’s
getting in through our skin. So it’s a big part of
what has contributed to our stagnation and we’re
just starting to catch up to that in the medical
field. So let’s talk about that. Let’s like, call this out.
It’s the elephant in the room.  about detox, they’re not going to understand the
We have a lot of health practitioners out there
from a lot of different disciplines, searching
for solutions right now to this explosion in
health issues. But when we look at it from an
allopathic perspective, that’s really best suited for
interventions and acute issues. I’ve never been
so excited to be in the allopathic system as when
my wonderful partner, Michael, last year had
an accident; I was thrilled to have an amazing
surgeon on his case. And that’s really like the best
use of allopathic medicine, right?  health, the real root causes underneath our brain
Because when we try to turn it to chronic
conditions, low lying, systemic issues that we need
to actually really work on over time with these
delicate, systematic approaches, approaches
with a lot of nuance, allopathic medicine is not
really designed for that. So then we start turning
to functional medicine and biohacking and even
like, traditional healing tools like homeopathy or
acupuncture can also be used this way.  body versus a shopping bag full of supplements
And without meaning to, where we’re looking
systematically, we’re looking at the whole health
pictures, we’re running a lot more labs than say,
an allopathic Western medicine doctor would.
We’re looking in different ranges on those
labs but we end up playing Whack a Mole with
the symptoms. We’re not looking far enough
upstream to what the original issues are. What
we call root causes in functional medicine is often
the result of the original root cause. So we’re still
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unpacking this. 
Because if you think about that environmental
pressure being put on us, that really is one of the
largest root causes that is very poorly understood
by medicine today. And it makes sense why
because allopathic doctors, for example, will
get seven hours total of environmental toxin
education in their entire training, if they get any
at all. So of course, they’re not going to talk to you
systemic effects of this environmental burden,
and how it’s weighing the body down. 
But we do need to become experts at that. And
we don’t have time for those— it takes 40 years
for new information to disseminate fully into the
field. We don’t have that kind of time, right? We
don’t want to sit around and wait for that. So then
our job is to actually turn to generative medicine.
And this is where we start looking at like, the real
root causes of what has disrupted our body’s
fog, our irritability, our early signs of dementia,
our chronic fatigue, our pain, our inflammation
in our joints, our stiffness in the morning, our
fatigue.
This is not natural signs of aging. This is common
right now but it’s not normal. It’s a very important
distinction to make. So we want to think in terms
of like, how can we remove interference from the
about plugging holes, for values that were low on
your labs. We want to remove the interference so
that the body can actually absorb your nutrients
again and start functioning and flushing things
out, and restore our balance on its own. We’re
never going to outsmart the body, so we always
want to work with it.
So that’s what we mean when we’re talking— I’m
going to say the word detox several times in this
masterclass and I want you to understand what
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I mean by that. I’m not talking about like a three
day cleanse or a 10 day cleanse or a detox tea,
or a supplement or something. I’m talking about
removing interference from the body, to restore a
state of flow, which is so crucial for the fascia, for
the lymph, and for the liver. We want to offload
the backlog of toxic exposures that disrupt key
body processes. That’s what I mean by detox for
this whole masterclass.  everything is moving and that range of motion
So in order to look at restoring a state of flow
in the body, we want to become experts on,
what is the living matrix? That’s what I want
you to understand today and walk away with
a felt understanding of. So the living matrix is
defined as the continuous molecular fabric of
the organism. Consisting of fascia, the other
connective tissues, extracellular matrices,
integrins, cytoskeletons, nuclear matrices, and
DNA. And the living matrix is very much that
foundational layer to this fascia-lymph-liver matrix
that we’re unpacking today. So let’s look at this.  the body. So this is actually what shapes the body
In this talk, I’m going to show you just a few of the
connections between fascia problems and how
they contribute to health issues downstream.
And how fascia, lymph and liver, and the
interconnectivity between them is more important
today than ever before. So you’ll learn how fascia
problems past and present, maybe old injuries, or
current pain can affect your lymph function, your
ability to detox and by extension, absolutely, your
liver function and vice versa. Backup in the liver
can actually put pressure on the lymphatics, which
can dry out the fascia and create more stagnation,
more distress, body wide.  changes, in both the environment and in the body
So let’s start with what fascia is because we’re
just starting to really understand this system in
the body and how essential it is to our wellbeing.
So fascia is a connective tissue that surrounds,
supports, and permeates all other tissues of
the body, including organs, including muscles,
including bones, including nerves. So this complex
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and continuous network of fibers provides both
structural and functional support for the body. It’s
basically like the scaffolding of the body itself. 
We think of the scaffolding as the bones. No,
it’s actually the fascia. The bones are kind of
just floating within the fascia. The fascia decide
how tight those connections are, and how well
and that state of flow that’s so crucial to maintain
for our wellbeing. So it’s very dynamic, it responds
very quickly to local issues in the body, and starts
trying to compensate for that. 
It’s made up of collagen, elastin, and all sorts
of fun proteins that give it strength and
flexibility. And it’s arranged in layers, so it actually
stacks. So the densest, strongest layers are
located near the surface of the body to provide
that scaffolding and that protection. And the more
pliable, gentle layers are more liquid or deeper in
itself. 
So fascia’s functions in the body, that structuring,
that scaffolding, that responsiveness, and that
protection for organs and tissues, really essential
for us to function well.
[10:00]
Facilitating movement by reducing friction,
distributing forces across the body, so that you
can survive and function no matter what’s going
on. It’s also very, very sensitive and responsive to
itself, and it really is the heart of the lymphatic
system. We’re going to talk about why that’s so
important in a moment. 
But you may already be here on this summit,
because you’re aware that you have fascia
dysregulation, because you’re experiencing
symptoms like these. Injuries, for example. I was
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in 11 car accidents as a teenager, I had a lot of
life packed in, and it was a series of unfortunate
events. And I got great physical therapy at the
time, and great chiropractic work, I was very
fortunate. But I did not understand how to
advocate for myself and notice what was going on
in the fascia. I did not know how to ask for help
with those lingering issues that actually deepened
over time.
Scars and scar tissue, a huge disruptive force in
the fascia. These are considered interference
fields. They actually contribute to major
dysregulation in the body because one scar,
say maybe perhaps your Caesarean section
scar in your lower abdomen, can actually create
serious back issues. And because the fascia is so
interconnected, it really is this web that’s trying to
distribute force. So that constriction and scarring
in one area can very much create referral pain
in another area of the body that is seemingly
unrelated. 
But if you learn one thing from this summit, I
hope you walk away with this awe about your
body’s ability to self-regulate, even under the
most trying of circumstances. And how systemic,
how deeply interconnected everything is. We
cannot look at any part of the body without
understanding how its role is affecting the
systems of the body, and vice versa. So this is not
just about your knee injury that won’t go away
or your lower back problems, or your hip issues.
Certainly, I had all of those.  part of the connected web.
I actually had fibromyalgia that was very painful. I
would wake up in the morning with my wrists all
curled in like this, with my fingers and my joints
all constricted into fists. It would take hours to
unclench. For long periods of time, I would tape
my fingers with popsicle sticks at night and shove
them under my pillow to try to save myself from
this. Otherwise I’d have to drive to work with my
wrists or my elbows in the morning because my
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hands simply would not unclench. 
So these are really normal examples of— or
common examples, should I say, not normal, of
fascia dysregulation. And by extension, lymph
dysregulation, a lot of pressure on the liver, and
little signs underneath of that, that’ll help you to
interpret for yourself and understand and unpack
as we go. 
Other examples of fascia dysregulation are
inflammation and autoimmune inflammation.
Not a surprise that I had joint issues, given the
fact that I also had a severe case of Hashimoto’s.
That’s very important to understand that
connection between fascia and the immune
system’s ability to regulate itself, which we’ll
go into further. Also, we need to consider like
hyperextension and mobility; that can be a severe
issue for people. Lack of sulfur, which we’ll talk
about. Shock absorption issues. 
Many of us who have gone through chronic
illness or are currently experiencing it don’t feel
like it’s safe to exercise because you feel brittle,
and you actually are. When the fascia is dried
out, when your lymph has become dysregulated,
you actually are not as resilient as you could be.
And of course, the obvious, muscle, fascia, and
referral pain. So referral pain is that sensation
of pain somewhere in the body that isn’t actually
originating in that area. It’s originating somewhere
else in the fascia, it’s just showing up in this other
 
So in order to actually tackle fascia symptoms
and fascia issues with depth and resolve them for
good, we have to start asking better questions.
So we’ve all seen all the commercials, we grew
up with them, about a pill for every ill and this
idea that if we’re uncomfortable in a local area,
there must be a way to resolve that and erase
that symptom. We don’t actually want to erase
the symptom. We want to understand why is the
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symptom there? “What has disrupted my healing
process?” because the body is so brilliant and so
capable of regulating itself and healing.  itself. So life experiences, old memories, old
So what has gone wrong? What has disrupted
that process? “And what can I do to remove that
disruption?” So actually addressing root causes,
the root of the root, so that the body can regulate
itself. Instead of trying to override the body and
the information it’s trying to tell you or to erase
that information because it’s not going to end
well. It’s just going to pop up somewhere else,
play Whack a Mole with your health symptoms. I
know, I did, and I know many of you can relate to
that. And so it’s so important for us to ask better
questions.  the systemic approach, we’re doing things in the
And on this summit, I know that you’re going to
get wonderful fascia specific support for actually
helping to self-regulate and to heal this fascia
dysregulation and these injuries. So some of
those are going to include like block therapy,
foam rolling, manipulation, because fascia
needs compression for new blood to come in.
Fascia needs compression to be able to be the
heart of our lymphatic system. And our nerves
lie in the fascia, so we actually need to think in
terms of supporting the nervous system as well.
And you can do that through meditation, sleep,
breathwork.
Amino acids, which are basically essential fascia
food. And you’re going to hear a lot about that
from other fascia experts. I’m just going to touch
on that here as a wonderful placeholder. So you
see how it interconnects with the fascia-lymph-
liver matrix, it’s a wonderful piece to this, but it is
just one piece. It’s only one layer, and you have to
look deeper than there if you want long standing
resolution. That’s where the fascia, lymph
connection is so important to understand. We’re
starting to get into the matrix here.  and anxiety and depression as very separate,
So connective tissue and fascia can trap and hold
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on to trauma. It’s really important to understand
that because that actually happens in the fascia
emotions, these are actually experienced and
stored in the fascia itself. That’s why in our
practice, we work with a lot of people with chronic
conditions, chronic digestive issues, chronic liver
stagnation, chronic lymph dysregulation. They
might be working with a diagnosis or they might
defy a diagnosis. 
But we are not their first stop. This is not their first
rodeo, and they’ve tried a lot of things and they
cannot resolve it. And then once they finally start
healing with our protocols, because we’re taking
stages that the body actually wants to experience,
then these emotions and these memories and
these experiences, start leaving the body. We
actually call this retracing and it does not have to
be a scary phenomenon, it can actually be very
gentle and fascinating if you understand what’s
happening. 
So it’s not new anger, it’s not new fear, it’s not
new grief, it’s old grief, old fear, old anger, old
resentment leaving the body, once you actually
start respecting how this system works. So when
you think about this and how fascia can build
scar tissue and create stagnation, and literally
build up this armor, I remember feeling like this. I
remember feeling like my body was an armadillo
shell that was cracked and all messed up. I just
could not function. 
I walked kind of hunched over and I had very
limited mobility, which was really hard for me
because I was a former dancer, and I would
blame it on my car accidents. I was like, “Oh well,
what are you going to do?” And I thought of my
body pain and my gut issues and my brain fog
unrelated things, when in fact, they were all the
same issue. So important for me to understand
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that and to start learning how to unpack that in
the order that my body wanted to heal.  professional is so important, or that foam rolling
Because once we start respecting that,
regenerative medicine, root cause medicine, then
the body can take back over and run the healing
process. Way less work for us, stop retreading
the same ground, and you actually get to release
these stored emotions and experiences, bonus.
Because then you get more flexible, more
resilient, more energetic, more clear over time,
instead of less. We’ve normalized this aging
and fast forward and this is a big piece of that,
because we’re watching everybody around
us, also stressed. Also having these life events
compound.
It’s been a very intense decade, the last couple of
years, for sure. And you’re doing that on top of
this insane amount of toxicant exposure in our
food, air, and water that is really adding pressure
to the lymphatic system and of course, to the
liver, which we’ll talk about in a second. So why is
that? Well, we’ll talk about the lymphatic system in
a second but we really want to explore one of the
reasons why it’s building up so quickly.  symptoms that are so debilitating and depleting.
Is fascia is drying up. Fascia is drying up because
the lymphatics are becoming dysregulated and
we’re not moving. If we’re trying to be intentional
about movement, we have such a sedentary,
stressed, contracted lifestyle, that we’re not
naturally moving the body and maintaining range
of movement, and flushing things out.
[20:05]
Like, the lymphatics has to get moved, the body
has to move to flush out the lymphatics every
day. The body has to move in order for the fascia
to stay supple and hydrated. It must have that
compression for fresh blood flow to come in.
That’s why weight training is so important. That’s
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why fascia manipulation with the help of a
is such a big deal because we have to restore
that flow back into the fascia and lymph. And
without it, those toxins are building up, they’re
adding more inflammation, they’re drying out the
fascia, they’re stagnating the lymphatics. Healthy
lymphatic fluid is supposed to be clear and water
like. It’s supposed to be that thin. There’s actually
three times the amount of lymph in the body than
there is blood. And that’s for a reason. We’ll talk
about that in a second. 
But if that lymph is not flowing with ease through
the fascia, it actually becomes the consistency of
cottage cheese. And that is why it’s so important
to not just do it once in a while lymph support
or once in a while fascia support. But to really
understand that we actually have to reclaim
this matrix and systematically chip away at that
stagnation to restore a state of flow. If fascia is the
heart of the lymphatic system, and the lymph is
living in that superficial fascia, we have to respect
how they must flow together. Otherwise, we’re
going to experience those local or body wide
 
So let’s talk about the lymph, so that you have
good visuals for this. I’m a very visual person, I
need to be able to see it in order to feel it and
believe it. So let’s unpack this a little bit. So the
lymph is living largely in the fascia itself and the
fascia is the heart of lymph, helping to pump
it and move it along. What does the lymph do?
Well, it’s really the architecture for our immune
system. It’s kind of amazing. So if the fascia is
the scaffolding for the body, the lymph is the
scaffolding for the immune system. 
It’s always flushing out and draining our
metabolic waste, pathogens, bad microbes, the
environmental toxins, the metabolic waste; that
stuff has got to move out. So if the blood is the
circulatory system of the body, delivering the
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nutrients, going out into the body, “Here you go,”
delivery system, if that’s the faucets, you’ve got to
have drains, or none of this works. So the lymph is
deeper in the tissues, flushing everything out that
got stuck, so that you don’t have infections, so
that you clear out toxicants, so that your body can
move and function with ease.  biochemical and bio electrical level and that we
But if that becomes dysregulated, consider
how fast and easy it is for chronic infections to
develop, for inflammation to start taking shape,
for our fascia to start becoming dysregulated,
simply because the lymphatics can’t keep up. So
a deeply intertwined relationship here, we really
can’t talk about fascia or lymph without talking
about the other. So while often overlooked, the
lymphatic system is a crucial component to your
overall health and vitality, deeply interconnected
with the fascia, the circulatory and the digestive
symptoms.  And it’s really easy to notice but it really can be
So signs of lymphatic system distress, let’s see
if any of these resonate for you and if you can
already tell whether or not this is an issue for you.
Do you have fatigue? Most of us do in this day and
age and most of us aren’t even aware of it, it’s so
normalized. We think it’s stress or aging because
we’re watching everybody do it. Just because it’s
common doesn’t mean it’s normal. You deserve
to feel energetic at any age and I really mean
that. If you have bloating, this is not just about gut
sensitivity and food sensitivities. This is also about
lymphatic dysregulation, water retention.
It’s not just about weight, although stubborn
weight gain is a sign of lymphatic system distress.
Cellulite, I felt so vindicated when I realized like,
“Oh, I’m not just very unfortunate, this is actually
a sign of dysregulation, and I can do something
about this. My body isn’t broken. I don’t have
bad genes. My body has been poisoned. It’s been
through so much. It’s been through those car
accidents, it’s been through many other stressful
life events.” I’ve been overfed but malnourished,
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and it’s really taking a toll.
Itchy skin, brain fog, they have all these fun
brain fog memes on Instagram, we’re totally
normalized to this but it’s not okay. And it’s a
sign that we actually need some support at the
can have dysregulated lymph itself. Night sweats
because you’ve got these chronic infections that
are starting to set up shop in the lymphatics, if
it’s not flowing well. Chronic sinusitis, colds, ear
issues, frequent infections, sore throat, tonsillitis, I
definitely had those.
Breast swelling with the menstrual cycle, that’s not
normal. Take it seriously, look at how to support
your lymph. Swollen lymph nodes, that’s most
easy to notice in the neck or in the armpit or the
groin because they’re so close to the surface.
anywhere in the body. And of course, cold hands
and feet. So now that we understand the fascia,
lymph connection, let’s add in the liver layer.
Because if your liver is not draining well, it’s
going to put pressure on the lymphatics and by
extension, the fascia. Because the liver is doing
a phenomenal job of actually being our master
regenerator organ. 
This guy is so big, it’s the biggest of the traditional
organs. It has 13% of our blood in it at any given
time. Isn’t that phenomenal? And its job is not just
to detox, it’s actually performing 200 functions
simultaneously. It’s helping to constantly remake,
process, and regenerate components body wide.
So if it gets slowed down even a little bit, our food
digestion, our hormones getting converted and
processed, and cycled out when they have served
their purpose, our ability to cleanse our blood,
process pharmaceutical drugs, metabolizing
and separating toxins out for excretion, clearing
viruses and infections, all of this starts to get
compromised.
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So even just a little bit of environmental toxicant
exposure can start to overload the liver very
quickly. Now, let’s look at why that is. Because if
this guy is so powerful, it can regenerate in six
weeks, it does an amazing job of all these things
simultaneously, why is just a little bit of chemical
exposure so disruptive? Okay, so your liver is
actually where your bile gets made. Your bile is
that liquid gold detergent. That’s what I call it
because it’s so expensive for the body to make
and it wants to reuse it.  away is fatigue. Another one, brain fog, for sure.
So the bile gets made in the liver, stored in the
gallbladder, and flushed into the digestive tract
to offload toxins and help break down food and
fats every time we eat a meal. But bile starts to
become congealed and viscous, and sticky when
it comes into contact with even just tiny particles
of synthetic environmental toxicants or heavy
metals, because bile is suspended in liquid with
very delicate chemistry. So if that drops out of
liquid form when it comes into contact with these
particles, and becomes sticky, sluggish, you’ve got
50,000 bile ducts in your liver that become this
viscous, slow down, clogged up situation, your
liver is not going to be able to flush out blood and
clean it. 
Which means all of that lymph that got dumped
back into the blood to go get flushed out through
the liver and cleaned, that’s going to backup too.
Your body burden is going to increase over time,
instead of decrease. At a basic level, we’ve just got
to be flushing out more toxicants than we take
in every day. If we want to head towards health,
more has to leave the body than comes in. It
really is that simple. But if your liver can’t function
because your bile got sticky and stagnant, and
your lymphatics start to back up and become
dysregulated, your fascia dries out because
your lymphatics are dysregulated; you start to
experience all kinds of different inflammatory
symptoms. Stagnation at every layer of your
health.
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And you start to think about these, the way we
talk about them in current medical terminology
implies that they are separate, but nothing could
be further from the truth. You are always living
in the fascia-lymph-liver matrix. Let’s talk about
whether or not this is an issue for you. Let’s look
at signs of liver distress. And unfortunately, many
of us can raise our hand and say, “Oh yeah, that
was definitely me at one time,” or, “It’s me right
now.” So the biggest one that I want to tackle right
Irritability, quick to anger. 
I don’t know about you, but when I look at our
culture today, you see a lot of that going on, right?
The brain fog, the fatigue, there’s all these memes
about it. We’re making it funny but it’s not okay.
It’s not normal. And of course, that irritability,
we’re really seeing that in our culture right now,
even glorifying it. So what else happens? Skin
blemishes. When the liver overloads you start
to see excretion in the skin that creates a lot of
different kinds of irritation, rashes, even chronic
skin issues like psoriasis, eczema etc. 
[30:00]
Digestion issues, if the liver is not functioning well
and the bile is not flowing with ease, we start to
get serious chronic digestive issues, which now,
61% of Americans have experienced chronic
digestive issues, so ongoing, within the last seven
days. That’s really telling. That’s not normal. It’s
common, but it’s not normal. So constipation or
diarrhea, diarrhea is in many cases, in many ways,
the other side of the constipation coin. It’s an
overcorrection of the body.
Slow metabolism, who’s noticed weight gain?
Who’s noticed, with our processed food diet, a
serious weight problem coming across the US?
We’re really struggling with understanding this
right now. Of course, then we get to more specific
like histamine sensitivities, food sensitivities has
 9
become so normal now, so common. Difficulty
digesting fats, excess weight, compromised
immune system. Never is that more important
than now. Difficult to sleeping, over half of
Americans are actually experiencing insomnia
on a regular basis. This is related, this can be a
serious part of that picture.  wants to be in a state of flow. We’re starting
So now let’s look at how all of this fits together,
the fascia-lymph-liver matrix. So starting back
at the beginning, we talked about connective
tissue and fascia, how that can trap and hold on
to trauma. And how fascia can build armor and
create that stagnation in an attempt to protect
the body, and regulate and stabilize. But that’s a
big deal because fascia is the heart of the lymph,
the heart of the lymphatic system, which is our
immune system architecture. That’s supposed
to be draining and flushing out our toxins,
our pathogens, our metabolic waste, and it’s
supposed to dump back into the blood where it
must get cleaned by the liver in a very efficient
way for all of this to move with ease.  there’s not going to be enough lymph flow and
Any stagnation at any one of those layers is going
to contribute stagnation to the other layers. So
stagnation in the liver is going to slow down
lymph efficiency, backup toxins and stagnation
there. Stagnation in the fascia due to injury, stress
or trauma, or lack of movement is going to backup
lymph and by extension, backup the liver. So we
really want to understand how these fit together
because it’s so empowering. You can do so much
at home to regulate this.  do not want to try to flush a clogged toilet, folks.
In fact, I created a special Fascia Flush Guide for
you guys, just for this summit, to understand how
to do that. It’s also very helpful for practitioners
who want to become more versed in this. We
have a lot of practitioners coming to us these days
for mentorship because they’re tired of crashing
patients, which makes sense. We need to get
more sophisticated in our approach. Some of you
listening are going to resonate with that, like me. I
The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit
was crashed by many well-meaning practitioners
before I really took charge of my own healing
journey and learned how to manage this myself. 
So this is where we start to obsess about
drainage, because everything about the body
to hear that word more in functional medicine
circles, root cause circles, that’s wonderful,
drainage, drainage, drainage, that’s fantastic. I like
to say, restoring a state of flow because it’s more
descriptive and also, less gross. And it tells you
what we’re really aiming for with the body, getting
our liver and our lymph moving, and by extension,
supporting the fascia to be high functioning, to
offload that stored stress.
And by extension, doing a little bit of very
targeted, localized work on the fascia is not
going to be efficient enough to actually resolve
the issues long term because you can mobilize
whatever is trapped there in that local area and
liver drainage to actually get that processed out of
the body. And then it’s going to add to a condition
elsewhere or pop back up again over time. 
That’s where you get that frustration of retreading
the same ground over and over again on your
health journey because we’re not thinking
systemically enough. We’re not providing system
wide support. That’s where drainage comes in.
We actually want to drain from the bottom up, we
What’s going to happen? It’s going to overflow;
you’re going to get unnecessary symptoms. 
I want you to get so discerning with the choice
of your practitioners and protocols around
this because you do not need to have these
unnecessary Herxing and healing reactions. These
overflow symptoms, they greatly reduce when
you actually respect the need for drainage and the
order that the body wants to restore flow, these
 10

are very crucial distinctions. Okay, so we want
to clear out the colon, basic stuff here. We want
to restore flow to the liver and kidneys in a very
gentle, systematic way.  want you to be thoughtful here and think in terms
And of course, by extension, the gallbladder
because we’re thinning out the bile, we’re getting
it moving again. So that the liver can be efficient
and cleaning out the blood; that the lymph can
flow with ease. We actually want to support the
lymphatic system directly. Support the glymphatic
system, that’s the brain’s own special lymph
system. And we want to restore flow to the
cellular and extracellular matrix, and by extension,
the fascia itself.  has been compromised, or your food has been
So when we get systematic like this, that’s when
everything changes. It’s super empowering
because you realize, “Oh, my God, I’m not broken.
I’m not weird. My body’s not finicky. I’m not on
the short bus. My body’s brilliant, it’s been doing
a phenomenal job of compensating. I’ve just
been poisoned. I’ve just been disrupted. I’ve just
been through these traumas.” Whether they’re
physical or life oriented in nature, these traumas
can actually disrupt the state of flow, but you can
restore it at any age, at any decade.  intelligent binders. There’s a lot of binders on the
The oldest person working with us right now is
86, the youngest person working with us is three
years old. This is not age specific, it is never too
late or too early to start working on this stuff. I’m
going to leave this study right here, you can take
a screenshot of it, I just could not resist including
it because it’s so phenomenal. And it’s one of
those things that helps you to understand our
orientation when it comes to supporting detox
and returning the body to nature. But I do want to
move on for the sake of time.  This is how we stop retreading the same ground
So let’s talk about restoring the state of flow.
We can work on releasing scar tissue and other
interference fields at the fascia level. We can
increase drainage from the bottom up, colon,
liver, kidneys, lymph, and support your liver to
release that sluggish bile. But that’s where we’re
starting to get into detox territory, and I really
of responsible detox. Get very discerning with
your practitioners or with the protocols that you
choose, and DIY.
We walk very sensitive people through this in
group formats all the time, great success, but you
have to respect the body’s stages of healing. So
you want to add in energy support to support the
mitochondria because it takes energy to heal. You
want nutrient support because if your digestion
empty, like many of us has for decades, you’re on
the back foot here, unnecessarily so. So we’ve got
to work on absorbing nutrients again.
And then supporting detox pathway support and
gut specific support. We want binders in place
because stored toxins get mobilized through
fascia work. You don’t want a retoxification event
and having that end up stored somewhere else,
only to create different issues over time. That’s
totally unnecessary. But you want to work with
market that came out even 10 years ago that are
not up to snuff right now. And I’m going to resist
going into a tangent there. 
And only when those things are in place, can
you really safely look at mobilizing. So herbs and
supplements, and tissue manipulation, that can
actually get the stuff out of storage and on the
move because everything else has been stacked
and ready in your favor to support the release of
that. This is how we avoid unnecessary symptoms.
over and over again. This is how we finally get
lasting relief. So it’s never too late. 
I just want to end on that note and remind you
that you’re in the right place, if you’re taking

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 11

control of your health journey. If you’re a

practitioner looking for more solutions right now,
you’re absolutely in the right spot. Be an explorer,
be a detective. Life gets easier at the rate that
you safely detox and restore the state of flow.
Addressing your heavy metal load, your toxicant
load, and your trauma can make healing a much
simpler process for all related conditions. 

I really want to leave you with this; that your body

is on your side, it wants to feel good, and it never
forgets how to heal itself. So it’s been my pleasure
and a joy to support you today. I really encourage
you to keep going. You’ve got this. There’s so
many resources available to you. We’re happy to
help you at detoxrejuvenation.com, and I will see
you soon.

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 12

Understanding the
Roadmap to Health
Peter Kan, DC, DACNB, FAAIM, CFMP

Kelly: Hi, welcome back to The Chronic Pain and
Fascia Rescue Summit, and I get to ask Dr. Kan,
ask Dr. Kan, ask, ask, ask away. I get to ask Dr.
Kan lots of questions. All of you, I’m sure, know
Dr. Kan, and if you don’t, please go to askdrkan.
com and you can learn all about Dr. Peter Kan and
all his work. He’s an incredible educator, trained
as a chiropractor, but really focuses on brain and
immunity and inflammation. So welcome, Dr. Kan,
thank you so much for sharing this Zoom call with
me today.
Dr. Kan: Thank you so much, Kelly, for having me.
Kelly: I know your expertise really lies with brain
immunity and gut health. Can you start to— just,
can we dive right into the why gut and brain, first
of all? I know some people have understood that
but let’s break it down simply and understand
why gut and brain have any connection. Let’s start
there.
Dr. Kan: Yeah, absolutely. I think most people by
now have heard of the brain gut connection or
the gut brain connection. What I try to get people
to understand is that it’s even bigger than the
brain gut connection or the gut brain connection,
it’s actually the brain immune gut connection. So
there’s a big idea, as I call it, the brain immune
gut axis, where it’s a three way triangle where
the brain and the immune system, and the gut is
intimately connected in their function, and how
they communicate with each other.  connective tissue, that extracellular matrix, the
This really derives a lot of our reasons for why
people have chronic health problems. Because
when one aspect of that brain and the gut axis
becomes dysfunctional, the other two aspects
of the brain immune gut axis also become
dysfunctional, becomes dominoes that when
as one falls, the other one falls as well. So
we can start to see that there’s this common
denominator. When people have brain symptoms,
they may also have gut issues. And when they
have gut issues, they may also have brain
symptoms. 
And when they have brain or gut issues,
their immune system also starts to become
dysfunctional, and can manifest as either
inflammation or autoimmunity, or sensitivity or
chronic infections that they can’t clear. So this
became such a recurrent pattern in my practice,
that I started to take notice of it. And I tried to
organize this information in a logical roadmap
so that we can actually use this and use their
symptoms that can seem like a mystery to other
people, but now becomes a guiding post for us.
We can use their symptoms to understand
that there’s potentially a problem within the
brain immune gut axis and where do we go
first, second, and third? Now the reason this is
important is that it can extend into the fascia.
So I’m really glad that you’re bringing the fascia
into the conversation here. Because fascia is that

The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit


stuff between the stuff, and people tend to think
that that’s just inert stuff just sitting around doing
nothing. But that’s not really true.
Fascia, it has multiple layers of connection to the
brain, it has a connection to our organs, and the
immune system is intimately involved with fascia,
the dysfunction of it, the inflammation of the
fascia, the scar formation. So the immune system
is intimately involved. So when you have this brain
immune gut axis that involves the brain, immune,
and gut, and if you have GI problems, then that
can cause immune system problems, then that
can cause fascia issue.
Or you have brain symptoms, and that can
throw off the immune system. That can cause
inflammation and that can throw off the fascia.
We started seeing how this is all connected,
there’s a big connection. And this is why I talk a
lot about the brain immune gut axis, this big idea
that it’s all connected but it really is. I think a lot
of times, people just kind of intuitively know it’s
connected, but let’s dive into the mechanisms of
how it’s actually connected. So you have more
stuff to back it up.  nothing we can do, you’ve got to wait it out, as in
Kelly: And when you talk about immune system,
because that’s been such a topic over the last
couple of years, like when we go to schools,
whether it’s medical school, I didn’t go to medical
school, but even people that go to medical school,
they don’t study the immune system. There is no
like, “Oh, here’s your immune system,” right? So
what do you mean when you’re talking immune
system? I’m so curious, because you have gut,
brain, and immune axis.
Dr. Kan: Yeah. And that’s a good question. I
think actually, in medical school, there’s actually
a lot of training on the immune system. I mean,
it’s kind of basic immunology stuff is that you
have your T helper 1 immune system, T helper
2 immune system, so that’s the innate immunity
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13
and then the adaptive immunity. The innate
immunity makes up the immune cells that go and
kill pathogens. So these are your neutrophils,
macrophages, your dendritic cells. 
And then on the other hand, you have your
adaptive immunity, which is the part of the
immunity that make antibodies. So that when
you get exposed to a pathogen, or something
that your body deems is something that wants to
attack, your immune system will be able to make
antibody against that particular pathogen. So this
is actually very basic and very well known. It’s just
that on a functional level, like how do we actually
manipulate these things? I think that’s been
probably lacking in a traditional allopathic model. 
Because traditionally, when you have a bacterial
infection, then you’re given an antibiotic, because
it’s assumed that your body may not be able to
fight it all off. And sometimes your body can fight
it all off, you have an acute infection, that the
response is too great, and you may need some
help. So there’s a time and place for everything.
Viral infection, they typically say, “Well, there’s
the case of a cold. Because your immune system
ultimately is the one that’s going to have to
summon the cytotoxic T cells, these natural killer
cells to actually kill the virus. 
So at the end of the day, your immune system is
innate, that means we are born with an immune
system. Now, of course, you have some rare
cases, some people have genetic immunoglobulin
deficiencies, or they have some rare genetic,
immune deficiency disorders, but that’s rare.
We’re talking about the general population, we’re
all born with an innate ability of our immune
system to protect us from environmental insults,
pathogens, and so forth. 
And literally, this battle between your immune
system and the pathogen that tried to come
 14

inside is literally life or death, at least to the
mind, or the immune system probably doesn’t
have a mind. But to the immune cells, they don’t
care, their only job is to kill a pathogen, because
literally, it could mean the difference between
life and death for you. If you have a bacteria that
gets into your body through a puncture wound,
and that bacteria is not able to be eradicated,
that bacteria can just grow, grow, grow, because
bacteria want to survive. So then you have this
bacterial infection that can circulate and you can
get sepsis, like, a person can die.  and it doesn’t resolve, then that becomes chronic
So to the immune cells, this is life or death, this is
serious business. And I think most people, when
they think about the immune system, they think
about that aspect of it. That, “Oh, the immune
system’s job is to kill bacteria and kill virus, and
protect you from infection.” And that’s one of its
main jobs. But the other thing that it does, is that
when you have an infection, the way your immune
cells actually kill these infections, primarily, is by,
again, these innate immune cells like neutrophils
and your macrophages.  of inflammation are the result of your immune
And what they do is they go in engulf a pathogen.
So they’re kind of like Pac Man, they eat up these
bacteria, if they’re small enough, like viruses
and bacteria. When they eat them up, they don’t
just eat them up, but they actually like bleach
them to death. Basically, they spill like enzymes
and lysozymes, and hydrogen peroxide on the
pathogen to basically digest the pathogen.  an excess. That’s what inflammation is and that
Now, these enzymes are very degrading to the
pathogen, but it’s also very degrading to your own
tissue. So in the process of killing the pathogen,
some of these enzymes and degrading things will
leak out into the circulation as a process of trying
to kill the infection, and those degrading enzymes
can then decorate your own tissue. And when it
does, you’re going to have tissue damage, and
that leads to tissue inflammation.  microcosm of the macrocosm.
Really, when we say the word inflammation, what
should be popping into the listener’s mind is
the immune cell is trying to eat up something, a
pathogen perhaps, and is spilling the enzymes,
it’s trying to kill that pathogen. And an enzyme
then can have a collateral damage effect on the
surrounding tissue. That’s what inflammation is.
So inflammation is not bad, because you need
the enzymes and these degrading substances
to kill the infection, that’s life or death to the
immune cell. But when you have too much of it,
inflammation.
Then you’re going to have a lot of tissue damage
and tissue debris as a result of these degrading
enzymes, degrading yourself rather than the
pathogen. And this is when people get into
problems. So what I want the listener to think
about when they think about inflammation is
not just, “Oh, I have swelling,” or there’s pain, or
it’s red. The four cardinal signs of inflammation,
redness, heat, pain, and swelling. So these signs
cells trying to protect you by killing some kind
of pathogen or trying to clean up some type of
cellular debris. But in that process, you end up
with more inflammation. 
Normally, your body has a way to clear it. But
if you can’t clear it fast enough, it’s building up
faster than you can clear it, you’re going to have
inflammation has tremendous impact. That
chronic inflammation that doesn’t resolve has
tremendous impact on the brain, on the immune
system, on the gut, and even the fascia.
Kelly: That was a beautiful explanation. Wow,
I mean, it made me so think about leaky gut
too. And I was thinking about leaky gut when
you’re talking about the cells leaking out. It’s a

The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit


[10:00]
It’s like the immune system, I would imagine it’s
also up against not just pathogens, but things that
look like you said, allergens like food, because
of leaky gut. And I was going to ask, if that’s
happening in the immune system, how is that
related to the food that they’re eating?
Dr. Kan: Yeah, that’s a great question, actually.
And normally when you eat food, let’s just say,
proteins, so dietary protein is to be digested,
and protein gets broken down into amino acid.
Now your immune system, once the food is
digested into amino acid and absorbed into your
bloodstream through your gut, then you can
react to an amino acid. These T and B cells that
make antibody to things. So when you have a
food reaction, that means you have intact dietary
protein that’s leaked out of the leaky gut, into the
bloodstream.  besides having a gut issue. So the food reaction
And you have these T and B cells that are
looking at these proteins and saying, “You’re not
supposed to be here.” So they have the capacity
to make antibody against the dietary protein. But
you don’t have the capacity to make antibody
against amino acids. So if normally, in a normal
case, if the food is completely digested, then you
don’t have proteins, or you have less amount
of protein that’s not digested, so you have less
chance of getting dietary reactions.  should think inflammation is these immune cells
Or if you have leaky gut, then the lining between
the intestinal lining is larger than normal, then
the dietary protein that are big, that normally
doesn’t get through the leaky gut, now can get
into leaky gut. And when it gets through the leaky
gut into the systemic circulation, there’s a chance
for that protein to be presented to the immune
cells to have a chance to build antibody reaction,
which is your food sensitivity reaction. So that’s
the connection between food sensitivity and the
immune system is that food sensitivity really is an
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15
immune system reaction. 
Food sensitivity is not a GI problem. People think,
“Well, my tummy doesn’t hurt, so I don’t have
food reaction.” That’s not true. You can have food
reactions that result in the buildup of antibody,
therefore causing increased inflammatory
response. Therefore, you get joint pain, you
get stiffness as a result of fascia forming scar
formation. And that inflammation can lead to pain
because the fascia becomes stiff, and it’s pulling
on connective tissue, sensitizing nociceptors,
creating pain in different places in the body. 
So the point is that the food reaction doesn’t
manifest in GI problems. It can manifest as pain,
it can manifest as inflammation, it can manifest
as arthritis, it can manifest as some type of
thyroid problem due to Hashimoto’s, autoimmune
disease, it can manifest in many different ways,
is something that we need to pay attention to.
You can do that either by just doing journaling,
eliminating certain foods, see how you do with it,
or you can do testing. 
But if you don’t eliminate a food that you actually
have an immunological sensitivity to, then every
time you’re exposed to that dietary protein, you’re
triggering more of this inflammatory response.
Because remember, I said earlier, the audience
engulfing the bad guys, spilling the enzyme, and
trying to kill the bad guy. 
Well, what if the bad guy is perceived as a
dietary protein? Something that normally is not
presented to the immune cell, but now it’s being
presented. So now your immune system is going
to see this dietary protein and it’s attacking that,
spilling the enzyme, creating tissue damage, now
we have inflammation from a food reaction. So it’s
important to be aware of that.

Kelly: And once again, your dominoes are now
building on each other, a domino effect upon a
domino effect.
Dr. Kan: Absolutely, yeah.
Kelly: And then a lot of people complain about
brain fog. Because I would say that, like you said,
most people would go, “Oh, I ate something. I
have a digestive issue that causes a digestive
problem.” They might not be linking, “I ate
something, and three days later, I have a stiff
shoulder. But I’m not thinking about it was
something I ate three days ago, because it’s not
a digestive complaint.” So that’s number one. But
number two is the brain fog. So many people
experience brain fog, whether it’s chronic or
acute. But how does brain fog or brain issues in
general relate to gut issues and immune system?
Dr. Kan: Yeah, that’s a great question. And keep
in mind, brain fog is a symptom. And anytime
you have any kind of symptom, you always want
to ask, what’s the mechanism or what’s the root
cause of that symptom? Because in reality, there
could be many different causes for brain fog.
I mean, you could have brain fog because you
have poor blood sugar stability, like you have
hyperglycemia, or you have insulin resistance.
So your blood sugar is not stable, so you’re not
able to deliver fuel to the working brain cell, and
therefore, you have brain fog.
You can have brain fog because your brain
is inflamed. This is probably a very common
mechanism for people that have brain fog.
So earlier, we talked about that inflammation
response, which is your immune system’s
attempt to protect you. But if that response is too
overzealous, then you’re going to have too much
of these degrading enzymes, damaging tissue,
causing cellular debris, and natural inflammation,
the ‘itises’, the arthritis, the myofasciitis. So
all these things are the result of this chronic
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16
inflammatory response. 
And when we have this chronic inflammatory
response, these are mediated by cytokines.
Cytokines are immune messengers. They are
proteins produced by the immune system to
really tell each other what to do. They’re like the
traffic controller, they’re saying, “Hey, you’ve got
a pathogen here, send more of a specific type of
immune cell to kill this pathogen, because of the
bacteria, we will want this kind of immune cell.”
Or, “We have these particular viruses over here,
send different kinds of immune cell.” 
So they’re kind of like dispatchers. They’re kind of
like text messages sent between the immune cells
to say, “What’s going on in the body? Let’s go take
care of whatever infection we have in the body.”
And these cytokines, when they’re produced by
immune cells in large numbers, then can magnify
this message of inflammation. Basically, if you
were to have some inflammation, and you have
tons of cytokines being produced, then that little
inflammation becomes a lot of inflammation,
which is going to cause more problems for you.
The cytokines can actually cross the blood brain
barrier. And by the way, in your gut, your gut
is like a little inflammation factory, your gut is
literally like a cytokine and inflammation factory.
Their job is to make all these inflammation
markers. Why? Because that’s the gate of entry
where you put stuff in your mouth. That’s the
route of entry for pathogens and stuff from the
external environment to get into inside your body. 
So your gut is lined with inflammation and
chemicals, or a capacity to make them. For
good reason because its job is to protect you.
Remember, inflammation is life or death for the
immune cells, they want to protect you. So your
gut is the place where there’s a lot of exposure to
things. So your gut is a factory of inflammation.
So if your gut becomes inflamed due to dysbiosis,

eating processed food, or you have a reaction,
so you have stress or whatnot, then your gut
will start to produce a lot of cytokines and
inflammation.  gut, and brain axis. I really appreciate that
And that starts to spill into your bloodstream.
So you get systemic inflammation, and that
systemic inflammation can cross the blood brain
barrier. And the blood brain barrier is nothing
more than a blood vessel that supplies the brain,
but that blood vessel has endothelial lining that
looks just like the gut lining. The blood vessel is a
tube, blood flows through them, your intestinal
tract is a tube and food flows through them. And
both of these are lined with this layer called the
endothelial cells. And that layer of lining is very
similar in the gut lining and the blood vessel
lining, in that you have tight junction proteins and
so forth.  the gut, from the brain. So you have excess
The space between the lining, cells can open or
close to regulate how much stuff gets in and out.
Where your blood brain barrier, if it becomes
compromised, just like leaky gut, the space
between the cells becomes larger, allowing larger
particles that normally can’t get through, now
able to get through. By the way, the cytokines can
actually get through to the brain, even without
a blood brain barrier compromised, you don’t
have to have a leaky blood brain barrier for
the cytokines to get through. They just can get
through.
But when you have a leaky blood brain barrier,
more of them are able to get through. And also,
other chemicals and toxins and things that are
not supposed to get through can get through. All
of this is going to lead to brain inflammation. And
one symptom of brain inflammation is that brain
fog, the slower mental processing speed. You
feel like there’s a veil over your eyes, and you just
can’t see through the fog. And you can’t focus and
process as well. That brain fog can be caused by
this neuroinflammation and that can all start from
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17
that breakdown in the brain immune gut axis. 
Kelly: That is a beautiful explanation of immune,
explanation on many levels, because I think
there’s been so much talk about, like you said, the
brain gut health but to bring in that access of the
immune and then understanding how the cells—
like you said, they should have these junctions
that open and close. And there’s many reasons
why these junctions don’t work properly. 
But when things go awry, that’s why inflammation
can tend to build upon itself quickly and get
this person into a chronic state pretty quickly.
And how does the inflammation create a fascia
dysfunction in general? Like you have all this
inflammation, from the immune system, from
inflammation, how is that affecting my fascia?
Dr. Kan: There’s probably multiple ways that
immune system dysfunction, specifically
inflammation, can affect the fascia, but one
of the ways is that— let me just highlight
one mechanism, okay? So when you have
inflammation, what that means, remember, you
have immune cells coming in to engulf some type
of pathogen.
[20:00]
Now that could be not a pathogen, it could be a
food that your immune system has decided that
it wants to react to, for some reason. So whatever
the reason is, you have something your immune
cells are trying to engulf and try to eat up.
And then in the process is spilling out these
enzymes and stuff. But also, what this immune
cell does, once they eat up the pathogen, it’s
going to take a fragment of that pathogen that it
just ate up, it’s going to travel to the lymph node,
and present that fragment to the T and B cells in

the lymph node to say, “Hey, I got you this. This
looks like a bad guy, would you please make an
antibody to it, so we can remember the bad guy?
So next time we see it again, we can just attack
and it’s gone, we don’t even need to get sick.”
So its job is to take that fragment of whatever
it just ate up and take it to the lymph node, to
show it to the other side of the immune system
to make a memory cell out of it. Now, in order for
it to get to the lymph node, sometimes it can just
travel through the bloodstream and it’ll ended up
getting into the draining lymph node, and it gets
through the circulation that way. But sometimes
you have an infection that’s in the tissue. And
these immune cells that are resident in a tissue
have to get out of that tissue and into the draining
lymph node.  surgical sites.
Now, how does it do that, if it’s not directly in the
circulation per se? Well, it basically has a tunnel.
It has a tunnel through tissue like fascia and
the extracellular matrix, and the way it tunnels,
so these immune cells literally will take that
fragment, and it’ll tunnel through your tissue
by using enzymes. One of the enzymes is called
matrix metalloproteinase MMPs, and one specific
type is called the MMP-9. MMP-9 is a type of
enzyme that these immune cells will produce to
help you tunnel through connective tissue and
fascia to get to the lymph node to do its job.
Now, you can imagine that if you have a lot of
inflammation, like you have an infection, or you
have chronic inflammation that’s not resolving,
you’re constantly sending out these white
blood cells to eat up something. And then they
constantly have to get from where they are to
the draining lymph node by boring through your
connective tissue, you can see how that can create
a lot of pock marks or tunnels in your connective
tissue and fascia.  contribute to fascia dysfunction.
That’s going to be degrading, it’s going to be
The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit
18
damaging. And that process itself can generate
cellular debris in and of itself. Because you’re
tunneling through your tissues and when that
tissue gets damaged, what happens to all this
damaged tissue? Well, somebody has got to
clean it up. Then those same cells that eat up the
pathogen, they’re going to come on and eat up
this damaged tissue as well, then you get more
inflammation response. 
So this is how inflammation can beget more
inflammation, especially in the connective tissue
and fascia. And once you’ve started creating these
problems, you have fibroblasts that are within the
connective tissue as well, that can start to form
scar. And the scar formation, again, we typically
think of scar like, a scar here or a scar there, from
 
But you can have these tiny little micro pockmarks
that can form fibrotic tissue as a result of chronic
inflammation. Without having to have had a
surgery, you just have to have had an injury, or
even just inflammation to create these micro
pockmarks. And that’s going to create a tissue
that’s going to be formed like this, fibrosis, fibrotic
tissue, or scar tissue. 
Kelly: And it’s just going to create more immobility
for that area, which is going to create a lot more
circulation issues, which is going to build upon
itself more inflammation.
Dr. Kan: This is all the stuff that you cover in this
fascia summit, which I’m not an expert in fascia
itself, but I understand how the immune system
leads to that. So when people have chronic
stiffness, chronic pain, yes, we’ve got to work on
the fascia, but also very well to your point, as
we spoke earlier, before we jumped on this call,
there are lifestyle things that you’re doing that can
 
For example, this brain immune gut axis

dysfunction, whether it’s through the immune
system creating inflammation, creating this
tunneling effect. And how did that even come
about? Because there’s a reason for the immune
system to be inflamed. Why is that? Because you
have gut dysbiosis due to poor lifestyle choices,
poor food choices, or you have blood sugar
dysfunction, or we have hypoxia because you’re
anemic or whatever reason. So there’s many,
many reasons.  it’s gloom and doom and other people are really
And we can’t just say, okay, everybody with fascia,
just dig out the fascia. I mean, we can because
that’s going to help with the fascia, but what’s
caused the fascia problem be there in the first
place? Can we do something to help it along so
we can speed the healing faster? So this is where
understanding this brain immune gut axis and the
roadmap is going to really help people to make
that progress much faster.
Kelly: And look at both sides of the causative
and what it’s affecting and then addressing the
causative while it’s being affected is a beautiful
explanation. I don’t know if there was more, I
mean, that is so good. It’s so good. So immune
stress, small word, large subject. I feel that stress
is one of the most damaging things. Now you can
look at stress, positive and negative.  glucocorticoids and catecholamines, these are
There’s lots of stress, like I have friends getting
married this year, that’s a stress that is positive.
People having babies, that can be looked at as a
stress that’s positive. I’m moving a house, that can
be looked as positive stress. But there’s negative
stress and positive stress. Can you talk about
stress, immunity and how this affects all of your
gut brain axis, when you’re under stress? How
that might affect your hormones even?
Dr. Kan: Yeah, I mean, that could be a whole
topic in itself. But stress is at the end of the day,
a neurological response. It’s a neuroendocrine
response, I should say. Actually, I should say it’s
The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit
19
a neural endocrine immune response, actually, I
should say it’s a cycle neuro endocrine immune
response. So there’s actually four components
to it. Cycle means like cognitively, mind wise, we
have to perceive the stress. And that perception
can be painted because you can perceive more
stress than there actually are. 
Some people are just negative, or they just think
positive. So there’s a cycle component, and
there’s a neurological component. Literally, the
brain is responsible for perceiving that and then
generating a response. So the hypothalamus,
pituitary, adrenal axis. And then you have the
endocrine, which is like the hormone producing
part, which is the adrenal gland, the glandular
factory of it that makes the hormone. And you’ve
got the immunology portion of it, which are the
cytokines that are involved in this. 
So really, there’s four components of stress.
It’s not just like, “Oh, stress, just get over it. Just
meditate.” Yeah, I mean, meditation can really
help. Managing stress can really help but the
impact of stress is more than just the mind, it’s
the body, it’s the brain, it’s immune, it’s hormones.
So the stress response, by virtue of releasing
basically another way of saying stress hormones. 
Glucocorticoids is your cortisol and
catecholamines are your adrenaline, epinephrine,
norepinephrine, these stress hormones, released
due to a stress response, can modify and change
sometimes permanently, your hormonal system,
your nervous system, and your immune system
response. Meaning, if you’re chronically stressed,
you can actually permanently modify how your
body’s actually acting, meaning you can just get
stuck in a stress response. 
So then whatever the neurological impact, the
immunological impact, and the endocrine impact
 20
can actually become hardwired into you so that
even when you don’t have stress, your body’s still
acting like there’s stress. This is a perfect example
of PTSD. So when you have this chronic stress
response by the virtue of these stress hormones
impacting your brain, your hormonal system,
and your immune system, it can change the
function of the fibroblasts and the myofibroblasts.
So these are these connective tissue cells that
actually make connective tissue and then make
scar.
So you’re going to change the function of these
fibroblasts that are throughout your body, and
more specifically, in the fascia, they’re in the
fascia, which is this multifunctional connective
tissue that supports your whole entire body. So
then you can start to get dysfunctional fascia
due to stress. So stress definitely has an impact,
from a physiological perspective, from an
immunological perspective. Some of these we
touched on earlier through the brain immune
gut axis, but know that when you have a stress
response, you’re basically going to start this
cascade, where you start to throw off the brain
immune gut axis.
And one by one, all those dominoes will fall. So
stress in effect, is one of the things that can throw
out the brain immune gut axis. So can blood sugar
problems throw out the brain immune gut axis.
So can, say a chronic infection could throw out
the brain immune gut axis. So can heavy metal
toxicity throw out the brain immune gut axis. So
stress will be one of the potential root causes for
people.
Kelly: And in that, you’re speaking of emotional
stress to begin with, but then all those other
things do create a chronic stress in the body,
which causes the body to be in this sympathetic
overload, which is causing these hormones to be
produced, which is causing the fibroblasts to be
created to thicken the tissue essentially. Which
The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit
creates an impasse, which builds upon itself. 
So how do you battle stress? I mean, this is kind
of off subject, but how do you—? I mean, I’ve only
known Dr. Kan for about not less than a year
and when I met him, he was the most calmest,
peaceful guy sitting at the table. And then I was
like, “So why are you here?” He’s like, “Ah, you
know, I just want to see if I could add value to
everybody.”
[30:00]
And then as he got up on stage later and spoke,
I was like, “Holy cat, that was the guy that I was
sitting next to at the table. He’s totally adding
value and I’m so glad he came.”
And then I got to go on his website. And I was like,
“He is so calm, and it looks like he’s tackling the
world,” in regards to what you put out there for
content and how you support your community,
and all the things that you do and offer. And I
know at some level, that’s got to be— like, the
stress, and we all deal with stress. How do you
deal with it? Because you are the one of the
happiest, calmest, even keeled people that I know.
Dr. Kan: Well, actually, Kelly, I am just a robot. 
Kelly: And he’s got a great sense of humor, too.
That’s the best part about him. 
Dr. Kan: No, I think the way that I—
Kelly: Are you an alien? Is that what you’re trying
to tell me, Dr. Kan, you’re an alien? Is that your
next sentence?
Dr. Kan: I think the way that I deal with stress
is I see it for what it is. It’s just, a lot of it is self-
induced, a lot of it is just our perception. And you
can take anything and spin it around, and make it
a positive one. So really, the simplest way to put

it, and it doesn’t have to be more complicated
than that, just see the positive in everything, and
know that everything will come to pass. Nothing
is permanent and nothing really is that important,
except love, family, and your values.  the stress of doing that? It’s only going to cause
So then, so what if I don’t do well in this interview?
Whatever, so I don’t worry about it. I just do my
best. And I prepare but I think people can take
a lot from just seeing people who are just really
positive, who always take something and then just
spin it into— like having perspective, I think that’s
probably a good word for it. Obviously, there’s
practices you can do like meditation, you can do
vagus nerve stim.
You can do a lot of things to help with stress. But
I think the biggest thing is just don’t even let that
signal be interpreted as stress. If a signal doesn’t
even get interpreted as stress, you don’t have to
manage that stress, because you have nothing to
manage. You don’t have to manage it, because it’s
not even stressful in the first place. How’s that?
Kelly: It’s beautiful. Because on your website, you
talk about turning lemons into lemonade, and the
three different people in your life that had some
kind of illness that you then rallied around to look
at it in a different way, in a different perspective.
And these were all people that were intimately
involved in your life, your father and your kids.
And so it’s what you said, it’s the signal. And I look
at the fascia as the signal receiver.
And so if I get a signal of stress and I tighten and
I contract, and I’m like, “Oh, here it comes,” then
my body is going to translate that. If I’m like, “Eh,
it’s pouring rain out and there’s lightning striking,”
and I’m holding on to a wire rod or something,
like very stressful. And this is really dumb and I
don’t have even rubber shoes on and I’m walking
in water, let’s say. I’m just like, really putting it out
there. I could be stressed walking through that or
I can just go, “Eh, what are the chances I’m going
The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit
21
to be hit by lightning while walking through water
holding a lightning rod?”
“Eh, I’m attracting it, I’m asking for it,” but what’s
me ill effect, which is what you’re saying. It’s like,
have fun, see how it feels. If you get electrocuted,
you get electrocuted. If you live through it, you
get to talk about the fact that you lived through a
lightning strike.
Dr. Kan: Wow, you brought up a really extreme
example, I’m not sure I want to kind of endorse
that.
Kelly: I mean, thinking about the last two and
a half years. I kind of feel like the last two and
a half years, we’ve been walking around with a
lightning rod in water. And like so many of us in
this industry— and I was in a conversation with
somebody a couple of weeks ago at a party.
And he was like, “Oh, it’s turning to one world
medicine and one world economy, and one
world everything. And everybody’s going to be
controlled, and everyone’s gonna be turned into a
robot.” So that’s really funny. 
And I was just like, “Dude, how do you wake up
every morning and think that that’s how you’re
going to live? Uh, I couldn’t live in that.” And
through the last few years, so many of us have
come together as colleagues and said, “Hey, hey,
as bad as it is with the aluminum that they’re
spraying and the mercury that they’re putting in
your mouth and the bad food that they’re giving
you and the lack of minerals in the soil, there’s still
a way out of this. And don’t worry about it, you
can still get through it.” It’s not as detrimental as it
looks, even though at times it can feel very much
like the sky is falling. The sky is not actually falling
because we have consciousness and we can rise
above this.
Dr. Kan: Yeah, being aware and being proactive.
 22
So you know what things you need to look at. But
not everything that you read applies to you either,
right? Like mercury and this and that and mold
and Lyme, it doesn’t mean you have all of it just
because you read it somewhere. So we don’t want
to get medical student disease, where medical
students going through medical school, they think
they have all the disease that they’re studying. So
we don’t want to do that.  to get from LA to Florida, I mean, you could take
And the way you not do that is by having some
type of roadmap to guide you as far as, “Okay, do
you actually have that?” And that’s a lot of what
we do inside our digital program, our training, is
that we’re teaching people how to understand
that. How to like, take things logically and sensibly,
rule out things and check things out. Meaning rule
that out, like, you don’t want to assume you have
20 things. You want to start with, like, maybe you
don’t, maybe you do, but you want to rule it in by
either lab tests or doing symptom assessment
and taking some type of roadmap approach to it.
So you’re not being overwhelmed.  that you always have to take the freeway, maybe
So yes, there’s absolutely a way to address
chronic symptoms. Some people do have really
complicated issues. But even though, for the
complicated people, the way through it is not to
think that you have every condition under the
sun. And even if you do have multiple conditions,
you have to address it one step at a time. That’s
beyond the scope of what we’re discussing today.  in all honesty, Dr. Kan, is because I feel like that
But I just want to let people know that there’s a
way that you can solve your issues. And the way
to do that is by understanding some of these
deep concepts that we’re talking about in this
great fascia summit, and also in this particular
interview, about how things actually work. So that
you can actually start to draw better conclusions.
Kelly: And in that roadmap, like the gut, the brain,
and the immune system, so that roadmap, is it the
same for everybody?
The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit
Dr. Kan: It’s a guideline. It’s not every issue,
observe it and see if a certain part of that
roadmap that’s dysfunctional, and they should
address it in a sequential manner. Because if you
jump three steps on the roadmap, then you may
not get as good a result. But it’s not necessarily
that it’s a law you must follow. For example, it’s
kind of like, if I give you a map, like you’re trying
all the scenic route and roundabout and all of
that, the roadmap just kind of shows you what a
freeway is. 
So if you want to get on the freeway, you know
at least where the freeway is, you can use it, and
you’re not getting lost in the scenic route, going
down every rabbit trail. That’s what a lot of people
do, they’re going down every rabbit trail that
looks interesting to them, instead of like, just get
on the freeway and get from point A to point B,
which is their result. So the roadmap is a way for
you to get on the freeway. But it doesn’t mean
sometimes you do want to go down the rabbit
trail. But it’s all about getting better, not about
how many rabbit trails you go down. It’s about the
result that you’re getting at the end.
Kelly: Yeah, and the roadmap and guidance is
the efficient way to do it. Because I know— and
why the fascia summit for me is so important,
roadmap, which is literally— the fascia is the
roadmap for our life. It takes all the history of our
lives, it has cellular memory, it’s got everything
stored in the body. And some of us have scars,
like I do on my head that show where I’ve been, so
to speak. 
But we forget about this wonderful roadmap that
is laid out for us that has all the connections to
all the things that have happened to us since we
were literally conceived and moving forward. And
so from one perspective, I want the framework to

be, “Okay, let me think about my fascia from the
other perspective— is the roadmap, is let me go
back to what lifestyle things, what didn’t I do or
did I do that kind of caused this issue?”
Change that at the core, at the causative, and then
look at the result and bring these back together
in the middle and everybody opens up like a lotus
flower. I don’t know where that analogy went. But
that roadmap concept for me has a lot to do with
the fascia. From your roadmap perspective, how
do you see that relating to their fascia, from your
perspective?
Dr. Kan: Well, I think the fascia— again, I’m not a
fascia expert, that’s not what I primarily do. From
my perspective, fascia can be impacted. It’s kind
of a sign. It’s a sign that something is wrong. Like
if you have a lot of fascial issues, fibrosis, scar
formation, keloid formation, that’s just a sign that
you have something that’s driving that process.
Some type of inflammatory issue, immune
system imbalance, and then what’s driving that
inflammation and immune system imbalance? So
then I go look for the root cause, and that’s how I
fix it. And if they need fascia work, then obviously,
they go find a fascial practitioner to work on
fascia.
Kelly: You’re kind of like your own MMP-9.
[40:00]
Really drilling down to find out what the real
problem is, as you’re tunneling through all the
weeds, so to speak, as people find the real
The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit
23
answers. That was incredible. I really appreciate
your clarity and succinctness. I mean, this was the
deep conversation about gut, brain, and immunity
in a 45, I don’t know, minute, an hour experience
to really give a beautiful rendition of that because
so many people don’t really understand that
deeply, like you were able to explain. Is there
anything else you want to add to the community?
Dr. Kan: No, I mean, I think that was good, just
the entry point. A taste about the brain immune
gut axis. If people want more information, they
can find me on YouTube. I have free videos that
people can access. Just look up Peter Kan, DC on
YouTube. Bald headed Chinese guy, pretty easy to
find. 
Kelly: He’s the robot.
Dr. Kan: And then also, The BIG Masterclass,
bigmasterclass.com will be where I do launches,
where we have this Brain Immune Gut
Masterclass and we teach people more deeper
about this concept.
Kelly: Yeah. Well, thank you so much for this
wonderful explanation and tutorial about how
everything relates back to the fascia and your gut,
brain and immune and how they all— the access
point. So thank you so much for this. Thank you
all for joining us today on this segment of your
Chronic Pain and Fascia Rescue Summit, and have
a blessed, moving day.
 24

Fascia: What You Need to

Know
Sue Hitzmann, MS, CST, NMT

Shivan: Hi, I’m Shivan Sarna, and absolutely
thrilled to have Sue Hitzmann joining me, and you
joining me. Thank you so much for being here
for The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit.
Now, the person who first introduced me to
fascia is my very special guest today. Her name
is Sue Hitzmann, I trained with her in 2013, after
years, decades of being a yoga teacher, and I
kept thinking, “What? What, huh? What would
have happened if I had known this then?” When
I was teaching from 1991 to 2001 with my own
studio, and what would have happened if I could
have resolved my body pain way back then, and
integrated it all?
So Sue Hitzmann, who is she? She’s been a muse
for me with so many of these ideas, including
this summit, which I’m thrilled to be co-hosting
with Kelly Kennedy. She’s a naturally and
nationally recognized neurofascial science and
research educator, a manual therapist, exercise
physiologist, and founding member of the Fascia
Research Society.  about it, and the understanding that we need so
She’s the founder and creator of the MELT
Method , a simple self-care technique that
®
Now, the foam roller you have beside you, Sue,
and that I have, these are specially designed by
Sue. We’re going to talk about that, and how foam
rollers, you need to be very careful with. Sue is
going to teach us about fascia today and the MELT
Method. Hello, my friend. 
Sue: Hello. 
Shivan: We’re doing it. We’re doing it.
Sue: Again, perfect. Good to see you again. 
Shivan: It’s great to be with you. I want to invite
all of you to share the love and spread the word
about what you learn today and what you learn
from Sue. Because it’s going to be a foundation
for so much of what we’re doing in the summit,
but a foundation for a true life transformation.
I’m hot on this topic, girl, I’m hot on it. I’m going
to let you do your thing and explain what fascia
is, what it used to be thought of, what we can do
that we can then take our learning and turn it into
thinking. 

addresses the missing link to pain free living, and Sue: Absolutely, yeah. I mean, I think that for
helps you to be hydrated with not just drinking everyone that’s going to speak at this summit,
water but hydrated fascia, supple fascia and I feel like this might just lay a great foundation
stable, balanced nervous systems. She’s authored where people can even further refine these
two bestselling books, and is the CEO of Longevity concepts. But for me, I was in the same place
Fitness, an online consumer and professional as you, in the 90s I got myself actually into a lot
education business.  of pain, thinking that if you ate right and you

The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit


exercised, you were going to lead an active,
healthy, pain free life. Then I got myself into a lot
of pain and I went down that rabbit hole of trying
to understand what my pain symptoms were.
My original diagnosis, before it was fibromyalgia
and chronic fatigue, was that I had plantar fasciitis
and I kept thinking, “Inflamed fascia, could
inflamed fascia cause me pain?” and if that’s the
case, there was no exercise for that. So what I’m
going to share with you is my understanding of
what fascia is and not only its relationship to pain,
but its relationship to just your overall longevity,
resilience, and wellbeing.
So to start this off, fascia, in the olden days, when
I was in college, and during my master’s in the
early 90s, I was told that fascia was an innate,
inactive, passive packing material. I always think
about it like the stuff that you get in a UPS box.
It’s like the stuff that you chuck in the bucket to
get to the good stuff. It gives everything support,
separation, and it’s kind of an accessory system.
That’s how I understood fascia to be and they’ve
significantly redefined fascia today.  We’re talking about all levels of stability,
They’re defining it as all of the collagenous
soft tissue in the body, including the cells that
create and maintain the intricate microscopic
network we define as the extracellular matrix.
What I think of fascia is that fascia really could be
considered a body wide, neuro electrochemical,
superconducting transportation highway. The
reason I mean that is because there are so many
changes in how we understand fascia and even
now, there’s this changing terminology. 
So if you’re hearing about connective tissue,
fascias, so multiple fascias, fascia, superficial
fascia, deep fascia, myofascia, loose areolar
connective tissue, the extracellular matrix, and in
more recent time, interstitium, they’re all actually
talking about the same thing. The same cellular
structures, it’s just it depends upon if you’re
The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit
25
cutting it with a blade or you’re looking at it in
a microscope. That’s really the difference in the
terms overall. 
So beyond myofascial syndromes and trigger
points, which is how people are trying to describe
pain today, that’s only just a part of fascia is how it
relates to muscles, but fascia, I’m going to define
as a dynamic system. So it’s not just a tissue, it’s
not an organ, it’s a system that plays a significant
role in joint stabilization, inflammation, wound
repair, and also, your immune health, your mental
wellbeing, and your neurological regulation. 
The reason I’m really confident in saying this
is because fascia truly is the stability system
of your body. If we took the opposite of what’s
the opposite of stability is instability and how
we define instability is a loss of the functional
integrity of a system, which provides stability. So
when we’re talking about stability overall, and
we’re talking about fascia, we’re not just talking
about structural stability.
structural, cellular, hormonal, neurological,
chemical, psychological, and emotional. I could
tie fascia to all of these because fascia plays a key
role with two other systems that provide stability,
that’s your autonomic nervous system and your
immune system. So these three systems work
as a system to stabilize us. In every way, fascia
is related to all of them, because fascia is the
environment that these systems live in to function
well. 
The reason we can see this now is because
of microscopic technology. We’re using these
confocal lasers, which are much sharper, they
give a higher resolution. So these researchers are
now looking at the intricacies of fascia, not just
the structural macro view in dissection. But now
on a cellular level, we’re really able to see what
fibroblasts are doing, how they behave, how they
 26

manage tension and compression, and how they
provide a role in stability on a microscopic to
macroscopic level; from cells all the way to your
overall stability.  fluid based system that really allows motion to
So when we talk about fascia, again, it is the
stability system of your body. And the important
thing here is to understand that our skeleton does
not manage our structure, posture, or stability.
Bones are spacers. The bones are spacers, they
are managed by the tension created by the fascial
matrix. So the fascia has a relationship to cellular
lifespan, which is a nice scientific way to say aging,
your neural signaling, which is how you function,
how you move, and sensory motor control,
and then electrochemical adaptations like your
hormones. So that’s why I can call it this neuro
electrochemical superconducting highway, is it
relates to all of this.  using this kind of concept. When you think of
The way I like to describe fascia is from
macroscopic to microscopic. As you magnify the
smallest elements of fascia, there’s this structural
form that fascia possesses that no other tissue in
the body does because it’s a three dimensional
fluid based matrix. It has a relationship because
it’s stabilizing everything. Not just your muscles in
your bones but every blood vessel, every nerve,
every cell, every organ in your body relies upon
this matrix to function efficiently.  only system in the entire body that has this shape
And what fascia is primarily made up of is
interstitial fluids and collagen. So the collagen
kind of presents itself as this global continuous
tissue, and it has exquisite tensile strength and
adaptability. So whether you’re looking at a
fascial layer, or you’re looking at a membrane,
or you’re using a highly magnified atomic force
microscopy, like you’re seeing here, which is from
Dr. JC Guimberteau, who in 2007, kind of blew the
roof off of our first International Fascia Research
Congress, showing the behavior of this collagen
matrix.  So the important thing about this is, on a
So it doesn’t matter how magnified you’re looking,
you’re going to see a presence of a tissue dynamic
that’s completely cohesive. It is this nonlinear,
occur with minimal energy expenditure, and
without losing stability when stress is applied.
So really, the system itself today isn’t called
a biomechanical system. It’s a biotensegrity
system. So for those of you who don’t know
what biotensegrity is, the term tensegrity, it’s a
structural relationship principle, which basically is
the coexisting pair of physical laws, tension, and
compression. 
So fascia is the tension compression management
system. That is, again, allowing motion to occur
with minimal energy expenditure, and without
losing stability when stress is applied. So I love
stability, unlike a traditional building block where
you’re stacking one brick atop another until you
have enough compression elements to hold
a structure together; tensegrity architecture
has discontinuous compression elements in a
continuous tension network. 
So every movement of any part is going to kind
of vibrate through all of the parts to manage the
whole structure, no matter how big it is, and the
is fascia. But in biotensegrity, in the concepts of all
human, it’s called self-assembly, you can actually
see this structural continuum in everything. Again,
it’s not just our structure, but in all living things,
rocks, bubbles, sponges, you see this tissue, this
shape, and these polyhedric shapes are what
hold things together on a microscopic level. And
again, we just don’t think of it when we think of
fascia, but that’s what it is. 
[10:00]
macroscopic level, you can’t be efficiently mobile

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if you’re inefficiently stable. So again, fascia is
providing our muscles and bones synergy and
continuity. But on a microscopic level, this is
what’s more important, is that cells are reactive
to the environment that they live in. Our cells
need a solid mechanical environment to function
so that they can communicate with one another,
and if you don’t have this stability, your whole
body is going to adapt. So the body is really
shaped by our fascial network at every level, from
macroscopic to microscopic, superficial to deep.
And it also plays a role in shaping the substances
of our body, again, our cellular makeup. So it’s
not our cells alone that determine the form of our
body, our cells are actually shaped and molded
by the extracellular matrix, the environment
that they’re embedded in. So when you think
about unwanted symptoms, if instability and
compensation persist, pain, a decline in your
resilience, or whatever you want to call it, that’s
the result is that you don’t feel resilient, you don’t
feel energetic, and you start having pain.  you think of the stress and restore regulator, like
The thing about pain, the way we deal with it
today, is we tend to treat the symptom. I always
kind of think of the brain’s pain message as being
like a fire alarm going off when your toaster is on
fire, when you leave soup on the stove, and it’s
burning. And we run over to the fire alarm, and
we take the batteries out, but the soup on the
stove is still on fire, right? So we need to learn
to treat more symptoms, because the symptom
based way of doing things is not going to get you
very far, you want to look at the cause.  and you start getting symptoms that seem really
And we get these pre-pain signals that people
miss, like when you sit for long periods of time,
and you get up and you feel as stiff as a dried out
sponge left out overnight on a kitchen sink. That
stiffness that we feel when we’re at rest, either
when you wake up in the morning, or you’re
sitting for long periods of time, when we get up
and we move around, it goes away. So people
The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit
don’t do anything about it. But I always kind of
think of fascia, sort of like a— let me see if I can
get this one to work, is sort of like a river. 
So daily living kind of causes sediment to
accumulate in the river’s flow. And where the
sediment loves to live is around our spaces, where
the fascia is extra durable, because we don’t
have the bony masses, holding structures to pull
structures together. This is really what’s causing
a lot of the breakdown because your nervous
system is really trying to figure out where your
joints are in relationship to gravity to keep you
stable. 
So if the brain can’t find the center of gravity,
your autonomic nervous system kind of
compensates to sustain stability, and then you get
compensation for stabilization, and stabilization
on every level can decline. Once you have that,
the nervous system and these three regulators
of stress, repair, and digestion start to falter. So if
two sides of a seesaw, ideally, from day to day,
when stress kind of comes in, we’re in this waking
state and our stress regulator is kind of under
demand, we wait for those calm points of the day
to have it bring us back to balance.
But when cellular repair is dominant is at night
when we sleep, and most people don’t sleep very
well. So you’re waking up kind of the next day
with this backlog of stuck stress. And when that
happens, fascia can’t return to its resilient state,
noticeable because the stiff to elastic properties
of fascia start to break down. 
A good way, kind of the analogy I use is if you
think of fascia sort of like a sponge, when a
sponge is hydrated, it can move and adapt and it
can deal with anything, and if you bring water to
it, it’s going to attract water quite quickly. If you
take tension or compression away, it’s going to

return to its original shape. But when a sponge is
dehydrated, it doesn’t move or adapt very quickly,
and it doesn’t absorb water very easily. And the
only way to get the fluids back in, you can’t just
draw or attract water, you actually have to work
fluid into the sponge.  myofascial release. And I always propose that
That is really where MELT, you asked me about
MELT, where MELT helps us is to minimize
the accumulation of the stuck stress because
if you never hydrate tissue, you start getting
symptoms that seem really noticeable. Like, your
fingers and your feet are always bloated. You have
constipation, anxiety, depression, sleep issues,
digestive problems, weight gain, things that seem
completely unrelated to like, joint instability,
which is how we usually think of fascia.  don’t realize, you have so many sensory nerves in
And this is the bigger problem because fascia
has a relationship to our immune functions. So if
the immune system starts to get under siege, if
you will, you get ill. What the last Fascia Research
Congress talked about were these pre-lymphatic
channels, these interlinks between fascia and
lymph. These pre-lymph channels are what are
pulling the interstitial fluid flow from fascia into
the lymphatic system. So again, if the fascia isn’t
hydrated and supple, the lymph system is what
really breaks down.
So MELT, the whole concept of infusing research
into application. The question that I had proposed
when I started learning about fascia was, how
could we improve body awareness, avoid stuck
stress accumulation, start catching those pre-pain
signals before they have pain? And how can we
use tension and compression forces to improve
fascia supportive, resilient qualities from day to
day? Because tension and compression is what
drives fascia to decline in its hydration but it’s
actually the thing that can restore it if you know
how.  diaphragmatic motion, we also tap into something
So the question is, how can we restore the
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28
regulation of our autonomic nervous system
through this hands off application? And so we
address the fascial system to restore whole
body stability and efficiency, rather than to
release myofascia because that’s the concept is
fascia doesn’t release, it rehydrates. So then
sensory motor control is enhanced. So it’s not
about the tissue, it’s about the nervous system. It’s
about neurons more than anything. 
We take this very indirect before direct approach
that we call the 4 R’s of MELT, reconnect,
rebalance, rehydrate, and release. And I’ll give you
a quick video on this is, we start with these soft
balls, and we treat our hands and feet first. People
your hands and feet. So treating your hands and
feet first is a great place. We also use these soft
tools, either a full or a half roller, depending upon
the client or if we have any special circumstances,
scoliosis and things like that, somebody with
Parkinson’s.
And then we do these reconnect techniques,
we assess how our autonomic regulation is
functioning, either through using body sense or
using movement assessments. We get people to
get in their bodies and really sense accumulative
stress. That’s really the first part of getting out of
pain is noticing where pain is happening, besides
where you actually have a pain symptom. So it
kind of gets you out of the pain points and into
the cause of pain. 
Then we do things like a rebalance sequence.
These are neurological techniques to help down
regulate the stress response, focusing on breath,
focusing on these subtle movements of the
pelvis to help the nervous system find our center.
And then after we’ve created these activation of
called the core reflex, which is this deep, innate
aspect of our core. Then we reassess and we

notice just any neurological adaptations, and you
can sense when your body goes back to balance
once you know what imbalance feels like.
The rehydrate techniques, after we’ve done
rebalancing effects is ways to either compress
or pull on fascia. So we have these three
compression techniques called gliding, shearing,
and rinsing, which both prepare fascia and the
sensory nerves for a shear effect. And then
we draw fluid flow through the body through
these rinsing techniques to create what’s called
a piezoelectric charge, a mechanotransduction,
these fancy ways to say fluid movement. We
do this also with the roller. We do these gentle
compression techniques on the masses of the
body to draw fluids into the spaces. This helps to
improve the dynamics of fascia and its ability to
stabilize us.  minutes, exactly.
And the last concept after you’ve rehydrated
tissue, we also have lengthening techniques,
which are tension movements. So ways to
actually cause whole body fascial pull to again,
draw fluid flow through the entire matrix. These
are more global techniques that draw fluids
through myofascial meridians, and do get into the
myofascial components of fascia instead of the
cellular, which is more compression. These are
more linear techniques.  or compress fascia for long periods of time, like
The last R of MELT is called release and this is
a way to decompress tension in spaces of our
bodies. So the neck release sequence and the
low back release sequence will create a traction
against the spine to again, cause this global fluid
to come back into the tissue. Kind of a quick run
of what fascia is and how you can stimulate it, it
is really easy to do. I mean, it doesn’t take a lot of
time, it doesn’t take a lot of focus. But I think with
a lot of things that you learn for the first time,
you have to think a lot about very micromanaged
concepts when you first learn.
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29
But once you understand what it is, you have to
think very little and you can make these massive
changes in your body, and it just takes a few
minutes a day to create that. So to me, fascia not
only has a significant relationship to mitigating
pain and causing pain as well, if it’s not in a stable
state, but it’s again, also a way to prevent the
unwanted symptoms of aging. So I think it’s even
more important for people to understand that if
you want to stay feeling youthful, fascia plays a
role, and also, your immune health. 
[20:05]
Shivan: I mean, that pretty much sums it up, Sue.
Sue: We don’t need anybody else in this summit
because we’ve just explained everything in 15, 20
Shivan: And what to do about it. I have a couple
of questions for you. One is, so rehydration is
not just about drinking a beverage, but it’s about
rehydrating that tissue. So I want to just shine
a flashlight on that term for a second. Can you
share some techniques for that?
Sue: Fascia is actually— the fibroblasts react to
tension and compression. So if you pull on fascia
when we’re sitting at a chair, you’re compressing
the back of your body, you’re causing tension
on the back line of your body, that is the exact
thing that causes dehydration, because if you
constantly are pulling, it’s not allowing the elastic
property to come back. So fascia, if you compress
or pull in very organized ways, in these very, very
micro ways, it just brings fluid to local regions.
And then you can create these global, like I said,
with the rinsing techniques, or the lengthening
techniques to draw fluid back into the matrix. It
just takes focus. 
You can’t just go willy-nilly about it. We don’t iron
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people like a shirt, which is what self-myofascial
release is. You see people telling you to iron
yourself like a shirt, when you find a lumpy area,
you’re to land on it and dig it out like you’re
winning an award for inflicting pain on your body.
But I always say, why would you cause pain to get
out of pain? So we take this much more gentle
approach. We kind of demonstrated that our
rollers are very soft, they kind of have a spongy
feel, just like a body would. So that when you
compress, it gives a little and it also transmits heat
to create that viscosity that we’re looking for in
tissue.  sends signals to the mind. And our gut is what’s
Shivan: So the whole no pain, no gain, this is
not what we’re talking about. It’s very gentle.
It’s surprisingly gentle. So I don’t want anyone—
once you go further and you’re practicing MELT
yourself, I don’t want anyone to think, “Oh, it
doesn’t hurt. It must not be working.”
Sue: Yeah, exactly.
Shivan: It’s the opposite.
Sue: That’s right. Yeah. I mean, why would you
cause pain to get out of pain? Oftentimes, I
describe it as like a kid crying out for your help.
When a kid’s in distress, you wouldn’t run up to
him and punch him on the face or like take a ball
and jam it into them. You’d get down at their level,
you would calm them down, you’d soothe them,
you’d tell them everything was going to be safe
and okay, that they’re okay now, they’re safe now.
And then, “Tell me what happened. Tell me what’s
going on.” So you would take information in and
then you would take the proper action.  was, the fascia is thicker in a much bigger region.
But when our bodies are screaming out for our
help, we take a lacrosse ball and we jam it directly
into the areas that are hurting us, like as if we’re
going to will the pain to go away. And I always say
again, don’t cause pain to get out of pain. This
concept of no pain, no gain, I was in that too. And
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I always say, lots of people eat right and exercise,
and still have persistent pain issues. So the
fitness industry is sorely lacking cellular science
and anatomy in the more cellular level. Because
fitness was really built on bodybuilding, so on
muscle toning, and physique.
But physique is not just skin deep. If you don’t feel
good, you can’t just like make some bicep curls
and think you’re going to feel all that much better.
Right? It’s a body wide thing. Our emotional
state is not just in the mind, but our body also
creating the feel good hormones like serotonin
and dopamine anyway, and the neurotransmitters
that keep us calm and balanced. So we can
actively participate in helping neurotransmission
and those neurotransmitters that are also
hormones, to kind of bounce back and forth,
so that we have better cellular communication
through our body so that we feel good.
Shivan: Right, and you get into that
parasympathetic state, which is that Zen state.
So what if someone has a scar? How does the
fascia work with scars from surgery or an internal
adhesion because a horse kicked them in the belly
when they were a kid? 
Sue: In dissection, I remember one of the first
dissections I did with Gil, we saw these small
marks on the abdomen, and we were like, “Oh, it
must be a gallbladder surgery.” You’ve seen these
little tiny incision, minimally invasive surgeries,
right? And after you take the skin off, and you look
at the superficial fascia where that small mark
And when you take it off the deep fascia, it’s
like, instead of sliding through those peri fascial
slippery areas, the fascia has now adhered. 
So the thing you have to remember when you
have a scar is that scars are actually very valuable
for us. It’s how we heal. Myofibroblasts are pulling

the ends of the tissues back together again,
naturally. We don’t have to think about that. But
even when the skin looks solid, the underlying
substances have forever been changed. It’s like a
storm and looking at the tree branches and how
the tree branches get a little decrepit, but the
tree branches are still tree branches, they’re just
looking slightly different than they did before.  to support that work, and to be able to do some
So once you have a scar and the skin is healed, we
need to realize that we can actually juice back up
those deeper aspects, because in that case of a
gallbladder surgery, when we got into the viscera,
the fascial adhesions were everywhere. And it’s
shocking, like there was even a piece of tissue
that had then wound itself around the transverse
colon, crimping it on the same guy, where there
was a bunch of poop being backed up. And
they might be treating him for constipation, not
realizing there was a fascial adhesion, giving him
that post that gallbladder surgery.  abdomen, it can also, if you have abdominal
So there’s lots of things that we can do to support
our healing far after we’ve got a scar. So for
women who have a C-section, you don’t want to
just cover it up and forget about it. You want to
touch the scar, you want to massage the scar,
and you want to realize that scar tissue can
impenetrate itself very far away from the actual
tissue damage site. And that’s the thing that we
can really work on, is to keep the tissue from
adhering where it doesn’t need to. That’s just what
MELT is about. And even your own hands, just
massaging the scar is very valuable.  an exhale that pushes out.
Shivan: And so just to do a full circle for people
who follow me and are interested in IBS and small
intestine bacterial overgrowth, and IMO, Intestinal
Methanogen Overgrowth, and you are having the
impact of adhesions on your migrating motor
complex, which is what’s keeping the bacteria in
your small intestine and allowing it to overgrow,
because it’s that sweeping motion and like micro
peristalsis, adhesions are one of the underlying
The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit
31
causes of that. 
So here’s a full circle moment where you can
impact those because we do send people all the
time to visceral manipulation therapists who have
been trained by Barral and Upledger. And if you
go to a good one, it’s a miracle. But to be able
things yourself is extraordinarily valuable. So I just
wanted to pop that in there because I know a lot
of people who are interested in what—
Sue: Yeah, absolutely. I think you’re going to
talk to Jill Miller, she has one of the Coregeous®
balls and she loves doing some of the abdominal
massage, which is also— like in MELT, we’re
more very basic 101. We don’t compress spaces,
we only compress masses. But if you are a
little more body savvy, taking that soft ball, and
really learning how to very gently massage the
scarring, make a world of difference. 
But even before you use balls or anything,
learning how to focus on breathing, and activating
the diaphragmatic motion, which will then
stimulate the deep abdomen and create that
oscillation through the gut. That returning what
is called a normal breathing pattern to somebody
who’s had any type of abdominal distress. And
in the case of IBS, I’ve never worked on a person
with IBS who has an optimal breathing pattern,
they oftentimes have an inhale that comes up and
 
That’s a reverse breathing pattern and that is one
of the significant contributors also to leaky gut,
which I think a lot of people have, that aren’t even
diagnosed with a gut issue. So there are a lot of
ways that we can help to enhance people’s overall
wellbeing by understanding that fascia plays a
significant role also, in the gut transmission and
the enteric nervous system.
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Shivan: That’s right, a hundred percent. And so

many of the folks with IBS, SIBO have that kind of
breathing because they’re so bloated, and it’s just
this—

Sue: It’s inflammation. 

Shivan: It’s inflammation. It’s also the little

bacterias that are overgrown, farting out
methane, hydrogen, or hydrogen sulfide. And so
you’re in this constant state of bloat, and then
you’re like, “I don’t even know how to breathe
anymore, because I have this constant pressure.”
So I’m so happy we’re talking about it. I’m so
thrilled that this dream has become true for me
to be able to share your message with even more
people. 

So I want to thank you so much for your

continued success and also, the introductions
that you made to me, to some of the other world
leaders in fascia. And I know so many people are
going to be following up to find out more about
you and MELT Method. And I’ll talk to you soon,
Sue. Thank you. 

Sue: Thank you.

The Fascia & Chronic Pain Rescue Summit