Why do massages make me sick

The most common type is Swedish massage. But there are at least 4 different types. This type of massage involves long and gliding strokes. The aim of Swedish massage is mainly to increase blood flow, improve flexibility, and ease tension in the body's muscles.

This targets deeper structures of muscles and connective tissue. It is mainly used to treat musculoskeletal issues like strains or sports injuries. The theory was that by squeezing muscles and possibly the lymph tissue around those muscles, we are pushing the blood and lymph fluids around so that they move on to our detoxifying organs more quickly and out of the body. One of the ways researchers test for this is by looking at something called blood lactate levels.

This burning sensation is caused by the build-up of lactic acid, also called lactate. When we perform high intensity exercises like sprints, high intensity interval training, or even when lifting weights, we can experience lactic acid build-up.

This build-up of lactic acid can irritate the muscles and lead to muscle soreness. The theory is that if you can remove some of this lactic acid through massage, then you might be able to reduce muscle soreness.

There are a couple of studies that contradict this and found that getting a massage 2 to 6 hours after intense exercise might help relieve muscle soreness. There are certain things you can do after a massage to help you get the best out of the experience.

Listen to Joe's thoughts on the benefits of drinking enough water on Episode o f the podcast Optimal Health Daily. There are so many different types of massage and different ways to study them, it makes it challenging to make sense of all of it.

But what most can agree on is that if you believe massage therapy helps you feel better, it likely will. I know that when I get a massage, I get into a meditative state and feel much more relaxed after.

Previous Next. Thank you for visiting! We at Vinings Massage wish you wellness. Related Posts. Reduce DOMS - if you feel sore in the days following your massage, avoid exercising that area.

Soak the affected area in a hot bath and drink lots of water to stay fully hydrated. Do not stress - if you find yourself becoming stressed because of continuous pain after your massage, take a painkiller to allow yourself some mental relaxation and avoid anxiety, as that in itself can be counter-productive. Most post-massage pains are part of a natural healing process and disappear within a few days.

The remedies above can help mitigate the extent of pain and speed up recovery time. If you have tried the above tips but are still suffering after several days, or if the pain you are feeling is extreme at any point, then always consult your doctor for further advice. A properly performed massage is not at all dangerous and also should never be unbearably painful , either during or after the treatment. Follow your instincts and help your therapist to perform the most appropriate and pain free treatment for you.

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Read Cookie Policy. All Massage Health Therapists Other. Feeling Bad After A Massage? Common post-massage symptoms A perfectly executed massage which benefits your health, can in fact also carry some short-term side effects which may feel a bit unpleasant. Aching muscles Aches and pains in muscles after a deep tissue massage or sports massage are very common.

Lightheaded or nauseous Feeling a bit woozy after your massage is also quite common, and especially so if you are not accustomed to getting massages regularly. Headache It is possible that you may feel a slight headache coming on during or soon after your massage. Nerve pain Much rarer than any of the above, it is nevertheless also possible that some types of massage may cause nerve pain.

How to relieve symptoms or pain after massage So what should you do after a massage to reduce the onset of pain or other symptoms? Recommended Remedies Avoid dehydration - sip a glass of water in the hour leading up to your massage Reduce the risk of injury - do not assume that all pain is always beneficial. Life is stressful.

It is a multi-decade process of adapting to stresses. While this article generates a lot of email from people who feel really rotten after a strong massage, I have yet to receive a report of major malaise after light massage. The combo of sensationally bad PMSM with gentle massage is clearly a rarity.

Nevertheless, gentler massage can cause some blahs. So I am sure that it does occur, and it would be nice to understand. For instance…. Many cases are probably explained away by a simple coincidence: sometimes you just happen to get sick soon after a massage, just bad timing. Viral and bacterial infections are more common than massage therapy, and they will collide occasionally.

Infections too mild to diagnose are even more common, but those can still increase our vulnerability to physical stresses significantly.

Chronic mild pathological vulnerability. In addition to mild infections, there are a variety of diseases and chronic illnesses that can go undiagnosed for years, or even forever, and those might also dial up vulnerability, either transiently during flare-ups, or all the time.

Fun stuff to brainstorm about! Extreme de-conditioning. Consider all the people who are so out of shape that they would feel slammed by a minute jog, a dose of exercise that any fit person would blast through with no ill effect. Anyone who has trained really out-of-shape people knows how startlingly fragile they can be. Emotional and psychological factors.

Even a happy, relaxing massage experience may expose or highlight an exhaustion that was already there, like taking off a mask. Life is hard and many people are running on empty, pushing through the days powered by caffeine, worry, grit, and necessity.

Massage is a rare chance to relax and unwind, but it may also have the potential to disarm us, to rob us of our normal defenses against the suffocating fatigue lurking just under the surface. Many massage therapists have speculated that PMSM is caused by a Jarisch-Herxheimer reaction , which is being poisoned by the corpses of dead bacteria during antibiotic treatment.

It rests heavily on huge optimistic assumptions about the powers of massage, specifically its ability to cause such an extraordinary surge in immune system activity that it could kill off enough bacteria to cause this effect. And what infection is this, anyway? Are we also hypothesizing that people with serious enough infections to cause a J-H reaction are also asymptomatic enough that they are seeking out massage therapy? Did you find this article useful? I am a science writer in Vancouver, Canada.

Full bio. See you on Facebook or Twitter , or subscribe:. More info. If PMSM is basically a light poisoning, does this validate the popular practice of advising massage clients to drink extra water?

With water. Answer: definitely not. Still really sore? You can count on it. In principle, the only medical condition that can be effectively treated by drinking more water is … dehydration. A number of disease processes and even toxins are dehydrating , which can in turn be treated with hydration.

The obvious example is alcohol. Dehydration is inherently dangerous, and will particularly aggravate any condition where the concentration of toxins in your body fluids is a factor, and this can be helped by diluting the toxin with a higher blood volume — but only a little, and not enough to dilute toxins. Many people will guess that drinking makes you pee more, which means more kidney action, which means more processing and filtration of some blood borne toxins — but the logic is just the same as with blood volume.

Not me. Whilst not disputing that your hypothesis may very well be correct and it is an interesting and plausible position, I feel that your conclusions are just a little strong without being backed by sufficient evidence. I appreciated the spirit of that criticism, and I even agreed with it and immediately changed one key overconfident sentence in the conclusion.

But as I reviewed this whole article looking for other signs of overconfidence, my concern eased. There are a lot of qualifiers and equivocation here! More criticisms arrived.