The answer is a big YES!! Massage can both improve and reduce some of your Endometriosis symptoms and improve your fertility.
As well as being a Women’s Nutrition and Health Coach, I am also a Holistic Massage Therapist and so I am a huge advocate of using massage as one of your tools to help improve your health.
It is such a powerful tool and has been used for thousands of years to improve health in China, India, South America, Central America, Europe and Northern Africa. Massage dates back as far as 3000 BC in India and 1800 BC in China. Abdominal massage has been used to improve both digestion and fertility.
Yes it’s amazing to be able to go to a professional therapist, but this is not always possible – such as financially, COVID restrictions (which are relaxing thankfully now), or the frequency that you can get if you do it yourself! You learn so much if you do it yourself. It is an instinctive practice, as it is a natural response to rub our aches and pains away.
Endometriosis and Infertility Issues that Massage can Help With
Endometriosis occurs when the tissue that lines the uterus, ‘the endometrium’, grows outside of the uterus. This tissue is usually found throughout the abdomen: on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and on ligaments that support the uterus. It can also occur on the bladder or colon. Rarely, endometrial tissue may spread beyond the pelvic organs.
The inflammation that occurs with Endometriosis can cause tissues and organs to fuse together, resulting in adhesions (i.e. scar tissue), which are then very painful. In women without Endo, internal tissues and organs have slippery surfaces, which allow them to shift easily as the body moves. Unfortunately, adhesions cause tissues and organs to fuse together, often trapping nerves causing debilitating pain in the pelvis. For example, the uterus and bowel or the uterus and bladder.
Some of the problems that adhesions can cause:
- Pain during sex can be caused for a variety of reasons but one is when ovaries become attached to the uterus and are painful during deep penetration.
- Pain due to restricted movements / compensation by pelvic muscles to adapt to adhesions of organs e.g. bowel and uterus / bladder and uterus.
- Bladder problems, where adhesions can cause the feeling of a smaller bladder and the need to urinate more frequently
- Adhesions / scar tissue causes inflammation, which can affect how an egg is released and passed down the fallopian tubes by the fimbrae – often preventing it reaching the uterus.
- Scarring / adhesions can cause ovaries to be stuck to areas within the pelvis and become distorted, as well as block the delicate fallopian tubes (as they are only the width of a single hair).
In addition to the adhesions, many women with Endometriosis have reduced blood flow to their uterus. If blood does not flow properly then your womb can become undernourished, stagnated and ill. Conditions such as Pelvis Congestion Syndrome can occur, and Endometriosis is a condition where if blood flow is reduced it makes the symptoms worse. There are many things in common between Endo and this syndrome, in that blood pools and stagnates in the pelvic area causing pain.
Women with Endometriosis also have inflamed and stagnant livers due to an excess in estrogen due to poor detoxification pathways. As well as poor gut health from the stomach through to the large intestine, this can result in low stomach acid, inflamed and leaky intestines, and a build-up of old food particles in the intestines.
All of this results in poor and digestive, liver and reproductive function from inflammation, poor nutrient and waste transport, hormone build up and poor detoxification.
Massage can be a huge help to all these organs from the stomach, liver and gallbladder just below the ribs to the small and large intestine in the centre, to the uterus, ovaries and fallopian tubes at the base of the abdomen.
8 Reasons You Should be Self-Massaging
There are lots of reasons to receive and give your a massage, here are some of the key points:
- Improve circulation and blood flow to the area, providing oxygen, nutrients and hormones into the area, and improving removal of waste such as CO2, metabolic by products and excess hormones.
- Improved circulation helps to reduce inflammation, adhesions and loosen scar tissue and has even been shown to help open fallopian tubes – I will share some links for these studies after this.
- Improves elimination via the lymphatics. Lymph can be easily clogged (I had to have daily lymphatic drainage massage for over a year (and more) as my system was so stagnant it caused me to be bed ridden with fatigue as I was so toxified!
- Improved circulation helps to improve detoxification of the liver – which is critical for women with Endo, where often our detoxification pathways are poor and we end up recirculating old estrogen around our bodies, which causes havoc.
- Improved blood flow to our reproductive organs – brings amazing nutrients for both our ovaries for the maturing of eggs but also for our womb lining to receive a fertilised egg.
- Realign your pelvis when working with a professional Physical Therapist or Massage Therapist. A poorly aligned pelvis restricts blood flow and lymphatic drainage.
- Soothes the nervous system. Massage stimulates the para-sympathetic nervous system which allows our bodies to enter “rest and repair mode”! This allows healing, as well as to reduce stress and inflammation.
- Emotional healing – massage can even bring emotional healing as emotions we hold deep in our womb are released as we either work with a professional (via Mayan massage or similar) or we make a loving connection through self-massage.
It is fantastic to have a massage from a professional, ideally once or twice a month for 3-4 months as you prepare to conceive. If you can then supplement this with your self-massage you will significant improvements in pain and the quality of your period – which is an indicator of our fertility health!.
How Can I Learn How to Do This?
Well! I have created an amazing bundle in the EndoFertility Library available for you to buy, its called Love Your Pelvis Bundle and its available for only £35 – though I am offering it for an amazing £25 till the end of July in celebration of the launch of the ENDO FERTILITY podcast on Wednesday 29th July 2020! That is cheaper than the price of one massage and you get to use it over and over!
As part of the bundle you get:
- A tutorial on the how massage can help Endometriosis and Fertility, the physical and emotional benefits, how to do it and what is needed. Check out the sneak preview below!
2. I give a video demonstration on exactly how to do the massage – the video below shows a clip of the full video on how to massage your stomach.
I have also added in some bonus’s, which includes a Seed Cycling Guide, a Castor Oil Pack Guide and 26 EndoFertility Affirmations.
I hope you have found this blog article to be useful – and is something you are going to investigate more! I cannot impress how important massage is as a tool in providing your body with what it needs to heal itself. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
If you loved this article, why not check out the other blogs I have, and the great material in my FREE and PRIVATE Facebook Group: Thrive and Conceive with Endometriosis.