Frequently Asked Questions & More
Exclusive Provider of
New Leaf Body Spa
1111 South Miller Ave
Mitchell, SD
995-0772
New Leaf Body Spa now offers massage
especially for people living with cancer and their caregivers.
We are mindful of your special needs...
Easing Cancer's Side Effects With Massage
by Gayle MacDonald, MS, LMT
While it’s true that new and better drugs have softened some of the side effects of cancer and its treatment, such as pain, nausea, low blood cell counts, constipation and anxiety, these drugs are not always completely effective. Other side effects, such as isolation, a shattered self-image, and peripheral neuropathy can often be difficult to address.
Comfort-oriented massage can lessen many physical and emotional symptoms for which no medications exist, or enable the person to reduce the dosage where drugs are available. It may also increase the effectiveness of other treatments such as physical therapy, pain medication, or psychotherapy.
Cancer treatment can be an invasive, fragmenting experience. People sometimes feel as if no one is at home inside their body. Encounters with medical staff often have no beginning, middle, or end, but, as one person reported, are more like stabs and punches. Healthcare workers lunge in and out to administer drugs, prepare you for a medical procedure, or explain the most recent lab results. A massage session can smooth over the frayed ends created by these inevitable, but necessary interactions; it can piece together not only the body, but mind, heart, and spirit.
For the past five years, massage students have given gentle massage to people hospitalized for cancer treatment at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU). Both givers and receivers have been excited and surprised by the results. Often, the outcomes are extremely tangible and dramatic. Pain ratings on the 0-10 scale have dropped from 7 to 2; neutropenic fevers have gone from 103 to 99; patients have slept well for the first time since entering the hospital; and self-reported fatigue ratings on a 1-5 scale have dropped.
Sometimes the results of a bodywork session are less concrete but equally as beneficial. One patient whose kidney was removed complained about an empty feeling where the organ had been. After half an hour of gentle touch, he felt energy fill the space. With this accomplished, the man felt able to proceed forward with his healing. June, a bone marrow transplant patient, commented that friends and family stopped hugging or touching her after she was diagnosed with leukemia. Bodywork filled the need for touch and reminded her that she was still lovable and worthwhile, despite having no hair and gaining 50 pounds from treatment.
Massage also can be of great benefit while recovering from surgery. Bodywork in the area of the incision can improve scar consistency, stimulate the formation of new blood vessels, promote mobility, and increase skin elasticity. Lymphedema, another consequence of treatment, responds well to lymph drainage therapies, a specialized form of bodywork. Compression pumps were once the mainstay of lymphedema treatment, but their use is now being reduced in favor of the use of manual lymphatic massage techniques. These methods are advantageous not only in their ability to lower limb swelling, but they also re-train the body to open collateral lymphatic channels.
When seeking massage during treatment or the recovery period, the focus should be on comfort and relaxation. The bodywork sessions should soothe and calm rather than excite. Light to moderate pressure should be requested, especially for patients with low platelet counts, areas of neuropathy or fragile or sensitive skin, bone metastases, or who are taking steroidal or anticoagulant medications. Cancer treatment places a heavy toxin load on the body, which massage can help eliminate. However, too much pressure may releases more toxin and naturally occurring waste by-products than the body can comfortably handle.
Cancer affects not only the body, but mind, heart, and soul too. Massage is unique in its ability to simultaneously promote healing in each of these areas. Skilled touch can help ease the experience of medical procedures, diminish nausea and fatigue during chemotherapy, provide a forum for expressing feelings, and improve quality of life by decreasing pain and other physical discomforts.
Editor’s Note: Gayle MacDonald, MS, LMT, is a massage therapist who also has 25 years of teaching experience. Through the continuing education program at Oregon School of Massage in Portland, OR, she teaches the classes “Massage in the Hospital Setting” and “Massage for People Living with Cancer.” She is the author of MEDICINE HANDS: Massage Therapy for People with Cancer (Findhorn Press, 1999). Gayle can be reached at (503)288-2943 or at medhands@hotmail.com.