Many people think of a massage as a wonderful way to relax muscles and to relieve the stress of day-to-day living. It may help lift your mood and unknot your muscles. However, certified massage therapists have the person receiving the massage fill out a health history form. One of the very important questions that they must ask is if the person has diabetes. This may seem like an odd question, but you should be cautious if you have diabetes and would like to get a massage. Massage and diabetes have contraindications, meaning that they may have an adverse effect on your health. Why is massage bad for diabetes, and what are the problems associated with massage and diabetes?
Insulin Uptake
One major problem that could occur if a massage is given to a diabetic person who receives insulin injections is that the insulin could be absorbed too quickly and cause the blood sugar levels to spike. How so? Massage causes fluids in the body to move around more. You may notice that after the massage, you need to use the restroom more often. Fluids have been massaged out of the muscles and are now being excreted by the kidneys. Massage therapists also often talk about stimulating lymph circulation. Basically, massage encourages fluid movement in the body.
If the site where insulin has been inject is vigorously worked by the massage therapist, the insulin will enter the bloodstream more quickly. Since the idea of insulin therapy is to have an even blood sugar level, pushing a lot of insulin into the system at once will cause an imbalance and cause the blood sugar levels to change quickly.
However, if you are diabetic and do not use insulin injections, this may not be a contraindication for you.
Hypoglycemia
A precipitous drop in blood sugar is known as hypoglycemia. Most diabetics are able to recognize the signs of becoming hypoglycemic, but some cannot. If a person has a long massage and has delayed eating before the massage, they may become hypoglycemic. Since massage is very relaxing, they may be so drowsy that they do not realize that they are becoming hypoglycemic. It is thus very important for the massage therapist to communicate well with any patients who are diabetic.
Tissue Issues
Diabetes does not just affect blood sugar levels; it may also damage some of the connective tissue in the body. If a massage patient is not aware of this, or if they have had diabetes for a long period of time and have advanced degeneration of tissue, massage may not be the best treatment. This is particularly so of deep-tissue massage. If a particularly vigorous deep-tissue massage is performed on a diabetic patient who has degenerated tissue or ligaments, it may deepen the damage to the tissue, instead of alleviating pain.
However, if you do not have tissue or circulation issues, it is probably safe to have a massage. You may wish to avoid the deep-tissue style of massage, however, and have something more gentle and therapeutic performed.