Bodywork: TLC or therapy? - Natural Remedies - includes related article on the different types of massage

Vegetarian Times, April, 1997 by Randi Hutter Epstein

For 13 years, Alex Martinez, a resident of Miami Beach, suffered two migraines a week, each lasting an entire day. "I tried everything, popped hundreds of pills, visited headache clinics, tried special diets and filled a lot of prescriptions," says Martinez. "Nothing worked. I felt completely helpless." In a last-ditch effort, Martinez enrolled in a research study on massage at Miami School of Medicine. As a study subject, Martinez was given two 30-minute massages to her neck and back each week. After five weeks, she reported that she experienced fewer, less painful migraines.

Martinez is one of 20 million Americans who have sought out bodywork since the 1970s, many for specific medical complaints, according to the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. More than 50,000 massage therapists provide nearly 75 million sessions a year, numbers that are increasing annually. Once considered a form of relaxation and about as important to health as facials and pedicures, massage is now recognized as a valuable health therapy and a branch of alternative medicine important not only in stress relief but in managing pain, depression and improving blood circulation.

At Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City, patients are offered bodywork before and after surgery. Jery Whitworth, R.N., director of the hospital's Complementary Care Center, says 11 departments, including cardiac surgery, oncology and psychiatry, refer patients for massage therapy. At least 100 hospitals nationwide use massage therapists to relieve the physical and emotional pain of staff members as well as patients.

Miami University's Touch Research Institute (TRI), a research center devoted to the study of touch and its application to medicine, has demonstrated that touch therapy can play an important supportive role in the treatment of many medical conditions. TRI studies over the last decade have demonstrated the therapeutic benefits of massage for people with asthma, cystic fibrosis, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, back pain, immune deficiency disorders, atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, burns, cancer, high blood pressure, spinal cord injuries, skin disorders, addictions and carpal tunnel syndrome. Tiffany Field, Ph.D., TRI founder, attributes the benefits of massage to improved sleep; relief from depression, anxiety and fatigue; reduced output of the stress hormones; and greater vigor.

NEW TECHNIQUES, BETTER

RESULTS

"There's more and more evidence that bodywork is not just a feel-good New Age fad," says Sharon Summers, M.S.W., who used to run a Miami social services agency but now practices bodywork in Faber, Va. Summers notes that there's been an explosion of new forms of bodywork over the last 20 years. "It used to be that there were only two types that were widely known, Swedish and Oriental. Now there are literally hundreds of different therapies. And the pace of change is picking up. In the last 10 years, it's been drastic -- so much so that it's hard for practitioners like me to keep pace.

What is happening is that various methods are crossing over and blending, along with an influx of bodywork traditions from all over the world. Today, most bodyworkers offer their clients a smorgasbord of approaches from which they select the techniques best-suited to the needs and goals of clients. "It's not unusual for a bodyworker to use four or five different modalities in a single session," says Summers, who practices Swedish, postural integration (slow, intense strokes and deep finger pressure); cranio sacral (mild pressure and manipulation of head, neck and torso); trigger point (pressure applied to points radiating pain); polarity (light touch and movement to balance energy), reflexology (thumb and finger pressure applied to meridian points on hands and feet) and Reiki (light hands placed on or above areas of body with tension or past trauma). These techniques are a far cry from the kneading, rubbing, pummeling, tapping and chopping that are the signature strokes of old-fashioned rubdowns.

One of Summers' clients, Rita Warren, Ph.D., a retired psychologist and researcher, swears by Summers' techniques. Warren visited a Swedish massage therapist for two years, seeking relief from the pain in her arthritic neck and shoulders. However, whatever relief she obtained lasted only a short time. Eventually, the pain got so bad that Warren had to walk around holding her head up with her hands.

Three years ago, she was referred to Summers who is a certified massage therapist with training in many new and old massage methods. After just one of Summers' treatments, Warren says she no longer had to hold her head up with her hands. With two sessions a week, she became virtually pain-free. Then, about a year and a half ago, Warren started getting dizzy every time she sat up from a prone position. The symptoms continued for about a month.

Conventional physicians treated Warren for an inner ear disorder, but drugs didn't work. Finally, they advised corrective surgery. Before considering that option, Warren asked Summers if there was anything she could do to help. After just one session of cranio-sacral work, the problem went away and never recurred. Warren explains that all Summers did was to gently move her head and neck to remove any blockages in the circulation of cerebro-spinal fluid. Warren quickly adds, "I don't really understand it, but it sure did the trick."