Migraine Headaches are Reduced by Massage Therapy

Lower back pain and sleep disturbance are reduced following massage therapy

“…Massage therapy may effectively treat lower back pain as it has been shown to reduce pain in other painful syndromes. For example, massage therapy has been shown to decrease pain associated with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis (Field et al, 1997a), fibromyalgia (Sunshine et al, 1996) (Field et al, 1997b) and migraine headaches (Hernandez-Reif et al, 1998). Moreover, massage therapy has also been shown to reduce anxiety and depression (Field et al, 1992).…”

Relationship between massage therapy usage and health outcomes in older adults

“…Several studies have found that massage therapy treatments increase serotonin levels (Field et al, 1996Hernandez-Reif et al, 1998, 2004 and thus may be a mechanistic pathway through which massage therapy effects depressed individuals. Field et al (1996) found significant increases in urine serotonin levels for infants receiving twice weekly, 15-min massage sessions for sixweeks, compared to a control group.…”

Identifying risk factors for rt-pa-related intracerebral hemorrhages in patients with acute stroke

“…One of the two studies on massage therapy involved 26 patients with CM, the other was performed with 48 patients with EM. Both studies showed that massage reduced migraine attacks, but a reduction in the severity of attacks was observed only in the CM group (35,36). Another recent study was conducted on 64 patients with migraine, 21 of whom received lymphatic drainage, 21 received traditional massages, and the remaining 22 patients were placed on a waiting list and were not given any treatment.…”