Is It Advisable to Get a Massage While You're Ill?

During a girls' trip to Scottsdale, Arizona, my friend Katie and I had planned on spending an afternoon at the spa. However, Katie came down with a bad cold a few days prior, and when we arrived at VH Spa at Hotel Valley Ho, the therapist advised her to cancel her treatment. This disappointing turn of events led us to discover that getting a massage while sick is not recommended, and medical experts agree.

Maya Heinert, M.D., a pediatric emergency medicine physician and spokesperson for RxSaver, advises against seeking personal care treatments such as massages, hair and nail salons, and physical therapy when sick. The reasons for this are twofold. Firstly, getting a massage could potentially slow down your body's natural healing process. When you're sick, your immune system is working hard to fight off the illness, and a massage can hinder your body's ability to combat an infection and move waste through your lymphatic channels and gut. Secondly, it can be painful and exacerbate congestion if lying face-down for an extended period of time.

Even if you feel like you're on the road to recovery, Dr. Heinert still advises against getting a massage. You should allow your body to fully recuperate before booking an appointment, just like you wouldn't return to the gym immediately after a severe injury. Most respiratory viral infections last for a few days to two weeks, and if you feel okay and have no symptoms after five-plus days, you can book a massage. However, if you're still experiencing symptoms like coughing up phlegm, wait until those have disappeared before rebooking.

When it comes to bacterial infections, it depends on the condition you were dealing with and its level of transmission. For instance, if you cleared up a UTI with antibiotics, there's no problem with getting a massage. But if you had a respiratory infection, it's difficult to determine when you're no longer contagious, so you'd want to avoid close contact with others, including on a massage table, until you're off antibiotics.

Getting a massage while sick or on the verge of it can also produce inflammation. When a massage therapist uses friction to break up adhered tissue, it can relieve tight, sore muscles but also provide more inflammation to an already inflamed body, causing more harm than good.

It's best to listen to your body when it comes to personal care treatments while sick. Let your immune system do its job and focus on resting and recuperating, rather than giving it more work to do.

Still not sure if you should book (or cancel) that massage appointment your tight hamstrings desperately need? It all boils down to a simple, albeit maybe disappointing, rule: When you're sick, you should cancel your personal care appointments. 'To seek the services of a masseuse or other care provider when you're sick is just plain selfish,' says Dr. Heinert. Often, 'you cannot fully know when you are contagious or not, and being in a public place and allowing people to breathe in your expired air is potentially exposing them.'

When you're back to feeling like your healthy self again, go ahead and rebook that massage and treat yourself to a little self-care (or maybe even a CBD massage). In general, massages are useful in boosting your immune system and helping with lymphatic flow and drainage, says Bindiya Gandhi, M.D., a double-board certified family medicine physician in Atlanta. And yes, you can get one even if you're super-sore from a workout.