IT’S no secret that a massage can soothe your mind and body, but improper massage techniques are far more dangerous than you may think. A woman was recently diagnosed with acute stroke after receiving a neck massage at a beauty salon, the Shenzhen Evening News reported.

The woman, surnamed Li, is a primary school teacher in her 40s. One afternoon, she found that she was having difficulty speaking and felt numbness on one of her arms. As the symptoms didn’t improve in the evening, her family immediately took her to Shenzhen University General Hospital.

An examination found an acute ischemic lesion in the middle of Li’s left cerebral cortex, which is a location on the brain related to speech.

The doctor also found that Li’s left internal carotid artery was missing. The internal carotid artery is one of the most important blood vessels in the human body, because it supplies oxygenated blood to the brain.

Li was diagnosed with acute stroke. The occlusion of the left internal carotid artery resulted in local ischemia and necrosis of the left brain, which affected her speech.

As Li doesn’t suffer any chronic diseases, like hypertension, diabetes or hyperlipemia, and she neither smokes nor drinks alcohol, the probability that she would have suffered a stroke was very low.

Li promptly found blood vessel imaging that she had done during a physical examination half a year ago. The imaging shows that Li’s left internal carotid artery had been normal, with the blood vessel intact.

It dawned on Li that she had gone to a beauty salon for a neck massage two days before she fell ill.

According to doctors, a gentle massage on the back of the neck may not cause serious problems, but if the masseur happens to press the blood vessels on sides of the neck, and the strength and manipulation is not well controlled, it could cause an injury.

(Zhang Yu)