Articles

Can I Have a Massage with Cancer?

by Edward A. Pankow, LMT

Mesothelioma.com is a leading web cancer resource for patients of mesothelioma, a rare but aggressive disease. Patients of mesothelioma are now utilizing alternative mesothelioma treatment, such as massage therapy as an effective palliative therapy in overall cancer treatment regimens.

There are some myths about massage. First, that the blood travels faster through your body and that cancer will spread faster. Massage increases the flow of blood, meaning it loosens the muscles and flushes lactic acid (a waste product) allowing fresh blood and oxygen into your system. Look at it this way, your heart is the pump that controls the blood flow and the type of massage determines the rate of your heart beat. You are more likely to increase your heart rate with exercise than by receiving a massage.

Another myth is that massage will spread the cancer. This is a tricky one. When you have a cancer tumor it may or may not shed (cancer cells). When you have cancer cells traveling though your body, they may or may not relocate somewhere else in your body. When you walk, when you sit, when you sleep, you are putting pressure on your body; the amount of pressure may have an impact on the tumor shedding cells. As a massage therapist, I would not put a lot of pressure on the tumor nor massage around the site so the massage should not affect the tumor site.

Massage therapy appears to have very few serious risks if appropriate cautions are followed. That’s why it’s important that you find a massage therapist trained in techniques dealing with cancer. And it’s important for you to tell the therapist what kind of cancer you have, if there is a tumor and what treatments you are receiving. How you feel, what exercises you can or can’t do. All this determines how the massage will be given, how long the massage should last, and when you should receive the massage.

There are professional health care providers that recommend massage as a complementary therapy to conventional medical care. Massage helps relieve the fatigue one gets from resting in uncomfortable positions from the neck, shoulders, and low back. People with cancer who receive massage on a regular basis report less anxiety, pain and fatigue, and it helps reduce depression. Massage is practiced widely at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and a growing numbers of hospitals around the country.

So I say go for it!

Please complete my anonymous questionaire above on cancer to help with my research into this area of massage therapy.

Thank you and good health,

Edward Pankow, LMT