101. Do Massages Help Migraines, Or Make Them Worse?

A lot of migraine sufferers feel their attacks start in the neck and shoulders, so it makes sense to wonder if massage could help stop a migraine before it fully kicks in. In this episode, I break down when massage can actually be helpful, when it can make things worse, and why that neck and shoulder pain is often a migraine symptom itself — not the root cause.

I also explain why some women walk out of a massage feeling better, while others end up with a full-blown migraine soon after. If you’ve ever gone back and forth wondering whether massage is a good idea for your body, this episode will help you understand what’s really happening and how to think about it more clearly.

If you’re ready to address the root cause of your migraines, you can book a free consultation below.

https://www.drlesliecisar.com/apply

Free Training: 5 Proven Steps to Being Migraine Free (Even if you think you've already tried everything.)

https://www.drlesliecisar.com/5SHMN

Connect with us:

Website: https://www.drlesliecisar.com/

Free Facebook Group: Healing Migraines Naturally, with Leslie Cisar, ND

Ready to try something radically different that actually works? Read more about my approach here: https://www.drlesliecisar.com/map

In health,
Dr. Leslie Cisar

Episode Transcript

hi there
welcome to the Healing Migraines Naturally podcast
I'm your host Doctor Leslie Caesar
and I am a licensed naturopathic physician
former chronic migraine sufferer
and I've dedicated my life to helping other women
who have chronic migraines
restore their health
so that their body stops generating the migraines
in the first place
and they can come off of unwanted medication
and do it all without taking fistfuls of supplements
so welcome to the podcast
if you're returning
and you're enjoying the content on the podcast
please subscribe to the podcast
it really does help us with the algorithms
to get the word out etcetera
so thanks so much if you're new here welcome
I hope you really enjoy the information here
so today
we're going to cover a topic
that I haven't talked about
before
and that is the role that massages play as either a
a helper for migraines uh
to help people get some relief from a migraine
or massages contributing to migraines okay
so we're gonna dive into the topic of massages today
I'm really excited to talk about this one
so this question was brought up um
by someone who listens to the podcast and said
you know um what about massages
do massages actually help with migraines
so many many migraine sufferers
the migraine the initial pain of the migraine
will start in the neck and or the shoulders okay
this is a very very common migraine symptom
where it feels like everything's starting in my neck
or maybe my shoulders you know
shoulders and neck
and then it's moving up into my head
and causing the head pain
causing the migraine
this is actually not the way that my migraines
would come on so
I'm not really that
personally familiar with this progression
but it's a very very common progression
I've heard this progression many
many times it's probably more common than not
and so when it feels like that for people
the thought comes to mind like okay
I could prevent this horrible migraine
if I could prevent this tension right
because the neck and shoulder pain
it it feels like a tension type pain
it feels like I'm stiff
people will literally have a hard time
moving their neck right
their range of motion starts to become limited and so
um if I could just head this off no pun intended
it progresses and moves up into my head
maybe I could prevent this migraine from occurring
let's kind of break down the symptom picture first
before we go into massages
so certainly there is a
mental and emotional component to most people's
migraines that is to say for most migraine sufferers
some not all but some of their migraines
are starting due to mental and emotional factors
we kind of call this stress right
I got stressed out and then I got a migraine right
and when people have stress
when people feel stressed out
what do they feel they feel like they're clenching
it's a pretty common stress response
that we tighten a muscle
we clench up and for a lot of people
they're clenching their neck
they're scrunching their shoulders you know
other people might be clenching their hands
or their arms
but it's very common for people to clench
tighten up the muscles in the head and the neck
when they're stressed
when the migraine starts in the head and the neck
and it feels like there's muscle tension there
so our mind starts to say okay
well I must be stressed I must be clenching
the muscles in my neck and shoulders
so how could I relax these muscles right
so
people were gonna think about massage as a way
to relieve muscle tension
kind of move things out of the muscles
you know remove the stress through the body right
people will think of massage to accomplish that
a couple other things here
so what I have found in my work is that many times
even though the first symptoms
the first signs that people experience
when the migraine starts is that
you know neck and shoulder pain
and tightness and stiffness and so on
um what I have found in my work is many times
that's not actually due to muscle stiffness
it's actually a migraine symptom so with migraines
right it's a very complex symptom
picture when we have migraines
so you know the classic migraine kind of what
you know the stereotype of migraines is
is the pounding headache right
but people can have a wide variety of symptoms
sort of all over their body with a migraine
even if you know
the main thing is the pounding headache
people can be nauseous people can have loose stools
people can have tingling they can have burning right
they can have pain in their neck and shoulders etcetera
so
we can have a variety of symptoms throughout the body
even if we sort of have that classic
you know pounding head pain type migraine
so if you take a migraine abortive medication
that isn't an ensaid okay
but if you're taking like a Triton medication
or a CGRP antagonist abortive medication
like a nertec
if you're taking that type of migraine
abortive medication and then as it sort of kicks in
oh wow my neck doesn't hurt anymore oh
I can I have you know
range of motion again in my neck right
my shoulders aren't hurting
that's a pretty strong indicator
that the neck pain and stiffness
the diminished range of motion that you're experiencing
that whole thing going on in your neck
was purely a migraine symptom
if you take a tryptophan medication
or if you take a CGRP antagonist medication
there's no inherent pain relieving
medication to that okay
there's no analgesic medication in that
an analgesic drug is a pain relieving drug
so Tylenol is an over the counter analgesic medication
or pain relieving medication
so another drug class that has a pain relieving effect
are NSAID medications
nonsteroidal anti inflammatory drug
that's the abbreviation NSAID
so like a classic over the counter NSAID is Advil
a stronger version would be naproxen
okay so many times
these NSAID medications are either
purchased over the counter
and taken and
you know in addition to maybe a Tryptin or something
or people are given prescription NSAID medications
because the anti inflammatory action of the drug
produces a reduction in the pain
that the person is experiencing
if you're taking Excedrin
as a migraine abortive medication
because of the aspirin
and because of the Tylenol in Excedrin
you've got two pain relieving medications
that you've just taken
so is it going to relieve the head pain of the migraine
it might is it going to relieve the
the muscle pain and stiffness in your neck
more than likely okay
so um
you can't do this test with every migraine
abortive medication
but particularly the triptans and the CGRP antagonist
abortive medications like I
like I say nurtec would be one um
or like a classic uh
triptan medications like Imitrex Maxalt
needless to say right
people experience this neck tension
diminished range of motion
perceive it going up into their head
and then the migraine developing from there
and so this drives people to look for
solutions for their neck so this
you know
there's like a whole little micro industry of pillows
special pillows for migraine sufferers
we've done a podcast on that you know again
if you're taking a a tryptin medication
if you're taking a CGRP antagonist medication
and then all of a sudden your neck feels fine
like the drug didn't realign your spine right
it's nothing changed in your vertebrae
after you took that Imitrex okay
so this is where you can kind of
you're taking abortive medication
you can kind of just run this little test
and you can get some data as to what's
actually might be going on here you know
more often than not you know
people will take their imetrex
and their neck feels better
so like I say it's
it's really not
coming from a misalignment in the spine
in those cases
so with massage
this is a very loaded topic in in migraine world
massages OK
because massages but I'm sure you've experienced this
if you're listening to the podcast
massages can give people migraines right
how many of you have gotten a migraine after a massage
this can get a little tricky right
people will go back and forth in their mind well
should I get a massage or should I not get a massage
you know how is this gonna go
so you know with massage right
you have a skilled practitioner going in and um
you know you can you know
someone that's skilled they can you know
literally feel the tension there
they can feel some of the subtle differences
some of the subtle changes
that occur in the muscles you know
if you have been going to the same massage
therapist for a while and they get to know you right
sometimes they say things like oh today you know
it feels like oh this feels better today oh boy
you're really tight today right
they they get to know you and they can you know
feel those subtle changes in the muscles and so um
with massage right you're applying pressure
you're applying movement
motion to the muscles in the attempt to quote unquote
loosen them up
what you're doing basically
is when you're applying that pressure of the massage
is you're sort of squeezing the muscle cells okay
they're getting a little squeeze
so when you squeeze the cells
you kind of squeeze them and whatever is inside them
is going to kind of get squeezed out
and when you relieve the pressure
they're going to start to pull
things back into the cell okay
you're also sort of squeezing all of the blood vessels
that are servicing the muscle
that's getting squeezed so at the muscle level
you're talking about the capillaries okay
the smallest little blood vessels that
like every cell in the body is sort of
wrapped or serviced by a capillary vessel
so as you're applying that pressure
you're also squeezing the capillary vessels
and so you're kind of moving the blood too
so
let's analyze this from the perspective of what I call
the three principles
hi there
I wanna jump in real quick and tell you about my client
Beth she was getting 15 to 20 migraines and headaches
per month and as you can imagine
this was impacting her work performance
and her confidence she also has two small children
and she was
starting to feel like she was a horrible mom
because she had nothing left for them
at the end of the day but she reached out
and she booked a free consult call with me
and after I asked her about her migraines
and her health history
I felt confident that I could help her
I help women uncover
the root drivers of their migraines
and follow a step by step plan to dramatically reduce
the frequency by up to 90%
without adding more medication
or taking a bunch of supplements
so we built her personal migraine map
followed the plan
and now she will get one to two migraines per year
which she uses ibuprofen to treat if she needs to
verses up to 15 to 20 per month
when we first started working together
that weren't responding well to any medication
she just reached out to tell me that
she got a promotion at work
she's on top of her career again
and has been able to come off all of her migraine
medication but most importantly
she's a confident mom again
and she's attending birthday parties at Jump Zone
with her kids and saying yes
instead of saying maybe later
I've worked with women like Beth
from all over the United States
who were told this is the best we can do
but they were still willing to dig deeper
so
if you are serious about changing your migraine story
go to Doctor Leslie Caesar dot com slash apply
or tap the link in the show notes
and on our free consult
we'll map out why your migraines keep coming back
and the first three steps you can take
over the next 30 days
I do cap new client spots each month
so if the calendar is full
the doors are closed for now
but if you're done
feeling helpless and ready to do the work to heal
pause this episode for 30 seconds
and book that console call
now if you've been listening to the podcast for a while
you've heard me talk about
the three things that our body needs
in order to function properly
when our body is functioning properly
we're in a state of health and we feel good
our body doesn't generate symptoms
okay so the first principle is
we have to get the nutrients that our cells need
to the cells the second principle is
we have to eliminate metabolic waste
material and toxins from the cell
and ultimately from the body
and then we have to restore our resiliency and vitality
at the cellular level
this corresponds to the cellular voltage
or cellular energy but there's also
in what we call an organizing energy to the whole body
that keeps the whole body functioning properly
in a state of homeostasis
or balance
so let's take a look at massage
from the perspective of these three principles
when you have muscle tension
the muscle is kind of locked up
when that happens you're going to have some restriction
in the blood flow to the area
if the blood flow is restricted
the delivery of nutrients
to the area is going to be diminished
if we have a lot of muscle tension
we're going to have sort of a blocker
in the first principle
we're going to have a blocker to the distribution
of fresh nutrients to the cells in the muscle
now on the flip side we have to get the waste material
the metabolic waste material out of the muscle cell
so every time our muscles move
they're generating metabolic byproducts
metabolic waste material some people call these toxins
okay when we hear the word toxin
we're always thinking about
you know pesticides
herbicides environmental toxins
you know
stuff that humans made and put into the environment
but we make toxins OK
every cell in your body makes toxins
there are naturally occurring toxins OK
so we wanna stop thinking about toxins being just
you know man made stuff
it's normal for your cells to make toxins
that's why
we have the ability to get them out of our cells
and get them out of our body
but if the blood flow is restricted
we're going to have a difficulty
getting the toxin out of the cell
and getting it back into the bloodstream
and getting it to our liver
and ultimately getting it out of the body
so the first and second principle
require adequate blood flow to the cells
to the area in question in order for things to go well
for things to function properly
for for things to feel good
whenever we're moving the blood
we're also moving this energy of the body okay
so what we call in naturopathic medicine
sort of the organizing energy of the body
when you move the blood
it is believed that you're also
moving this organizing energy
and you're kind of promoting the proper
movement of energy throughout the body
in Chinese medicine they call this Chi
a lot of people are more familiar with that term
if we are stressed out and we're clenching our neck
and we're hunching our shoulders
we're kind of locking the muscle up
we're limiting the blood flow
and then you start to see how things
pile up within these three principles
so then you have a little bit of a
sort of a downward spiral
I'm not trying to be too dramatic here
right but if I start to
once I start to choke off the blood flow to an area
I'm going to
start to impede the proper functioning of that area
what's gonna happen next is
I'm gonna have even more pain
and stiffness in that area right
if that's the case getting movement through the area
right if okay
so if I can kind of get things moving again
if I can break up the tension
if I can promote the blood flow to the area again
I'm going to reverse the problem okay
so in this sense massage can be a helpful temporary fix
right ultimately
I think we want to do some investigation around
why am I
stressed out in this situation in the first place
that would be very helpful to understand
so that then we can put together
maybe some better coping strategies
maybe implement boundaries in some way right
maybe we uncover oh you know what
I was kind of looking at this whole situation
from the perspective that really
you know was like a false perspective I
if I look at it from a different perspective
I feel a lot better and I'm not stressed
but in the immediate aftermath of this right
going in and getting a massage
getting the blood flow promoted through the area
that can be very beneficial and so for some people uh
oh I've got pain and tension
I don't want this to go up into my head
for some people
getting a massage could be a real benefit and prevent
that migraine
from brewing
because again
when we say I'm stressed out
that is a stressor on the body
and like I've talked about in other podcast
any type of stressor whether it's a mental
emotional stressor a physical stressor on the body
any type of stressor on the body
is going to sort of push us out of a state of health
and can tip us into a migraine
if we're prone to migraines
so getting that kind of turned around and
and getting that mental emotional stress relieved
and getting good blood flow back into the tissue
can be very helpful
the flip side of this is when you're getting a massage
and you're kind of
applying that pressure to the muscles
you are sort of
squeezing out the waste material that's in the muscle
and so
that waste material is getting kind of squeezed out
it's exiting the muscle faster than it would normally
and it's going into the bloodstream
so when you get a massage
you are having sort of a
influx of metabolic waste material and toxins
into your bloodstream
this is why when you get a massage
what do they tell you
make sure you drink a lot of water today right
because the thought behind that
not necessarily that's actually
but the thought behind that is
you're gonna dilute this inevitable
influx of waste
material and toxins into your bloodstream
you're gonna sort of promote the elimination of that
by drinking a lot of water
in the hopes that your kidneys will put
that into your urine and you urinate it out right
or you sort of dilute that with some additional
fluid in the body again
that's the theory behind it
I'm not gonna go into whether or not
that's actually the case on this podcast
but you know
you're told to do this by the massage therapist
because it's sort of
well known that this phenomenon happens
so like I've talked about in other podcasts
the very fact that you
have the migraine in the first place
is because there's a overload of metabolic waste
material and toxins in your body
and so if you're right on the edge
uh oh right
uh oh I might be getting a migraine here
and then you go in for a massage
and they squeeze a whole bunch of waste
material out of your muscles into
into your bloodstream
you're going to have an even greater overload
of waste material into your bloodstream
which can absolutely exacerbate a migraine
maybe you wouldn't have gotten a migraine
maybe you would have been able to stave it off
but that acute influx
of waste material into your bloodstream Whoo
that's enough
and it just tips you right over into a migraine
so this is why right when amongst migraine suffers
when you talk about massage
it's a little bit of a loaded question
sometimes it helps sometimes it it doesn't help right
there's a lot of
women who are prone to migraines that will say
oh yeah I gotta be real careful with massage
because there's been many a time
I've walked out of that massage
and you know
within a half hour hour
I've got a bad bad migraine in summary
um massage can be helpful OK
to bring more blood flow to the area I mean
I've really focused on neck and shoulders
but you know any area that you get a massage
you're going to be promoting blood flow to that area
which is going to deliver
all three of those principles
all three of those beneficial principles
to the area in question
but the flip side of it is
you're gonna have an acute influx of toxins
in your bloodstream from that muscle tissue too
you have to have the capacity to deal with that excess
okay I like to use the analogy that we sort of have
like this like this trash can okay
we have this toxin bucket
and we are continuously adding trash to the bucket
because like I said before
we're continuously making metabolic waste material
and toxins
even if we were living in a pristine environment
you're living on top of a Mountain Top
drinking pristine
bring water and breathing in the clear mountain air
and eating all organic food
you would still be adding
trash to this little trash can inside your body
because we make the toxins
when we get a migraine
that toxin bucket has like overflowed to get a massage
we know we're gonna have some additional toxins
kind of squeezed into our bloodstream
we gotta have room in the bucket
so if my bucket is half full
I've got room I can get a massage
and those extra squeezed out waste material molecules
they can go into that bucket
and I'm gonna be able to accommodate that
I'm gonna be able to handle that influx
if I go into a massage and my toxin bucket is already
you know
like up to the brim and it's about ready to overspill
and then I get a full body
90 minute massage with the heat and everything else
I'm gonna have a pretty significant
release of waste material
metabolic waste material from my muscles
etcetera going into my bloodstream
and that's going to cause that bucket to overspill
and when that bucket overspills
you and I are gonna get a migraine
because we are prone to migraines
I hope this helps
you sort of understand what's going on
when you get a massage
I hope this gives you some bonus information too around
you know the neck and shoulder tension and pain
etcetera that's so prominent with migraines
how you can run a little test to determine
is this actually like muscle tension
or is this a migraine symptom right
that can be very helpful for people to understand
as well so thanks for joining me today
um I do want to invite you to my free Facebook group
called Healing Migraines Naturally
with Leslie Caesar
and d type that in the search bar
we've got over 12,000 women
this is a Facebook group exclusively for women
who are concerned about migraines and headaches
so it's actually one of the largest
migraine Facebook groups very proud of that
and it's actually a positive group
because people are actually getting better
and people are focusing on healing and recovering
some of the migraine groups
I hate to say
but it's more of sort of like a chronic illness mindset
and they can be very very sort of depressing places
but this Facebook group
you know
you can call me biased because it's my Facebook group
but I do think it's the most positive
Migraine Facebook group out there
and one of the largest too
so you're welcome to join us
I get a lot of topics for this podcast
from the questions
that people ask in the Facebook group
so if you wanna join us in there
we would love to have you and I might uh
use one of your questions on the podcast
so thanks for joining me today
again if you enjoy the information that we put out here
please subscribe
it really does help us with the algorithms
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and again I want to invite you
if my approach resonates with you
and you live in the United States
and you're 18 or older
I'll be more than happy to talk with you
on a free migraines console call
we'll talk about where you're at with your migraines
and a game plan for you to feel better
so talk to you guys soon have a great day