Hydrotherapy for Migraine

Hydrotherapy is actually a well known treatment among migraine experts. However, nailing down just what it is and how to do it can be difficult.

What is hydrotherapy? Actually, the word is used in some very different ways, so beware if you’re reading about a precise treatment which claims to be “THE” hydrotherapy.

Hydrotherapy is therapy with water. Now, most commonly in medical research, this refers to something that includes some kind of exercise. For example, someone who has trouble exercising due to an injury may find it easier to do more movement in a pool. This is also known as aquatherapy.

But hydrotherapy also refers to other aspects of water – cold and heat, minerals in the water, movement of the water (for example, a whirlpool). Sometimes even using a wet towel and your feet in a bowl may be called hydrotherapy.

Hydrotherapy has been studied in clinical trials, but it’s very difficult to study well because there are so many possible variations.

The basic consensus at the moment seems to be that hydrotherapy works, there’s good scientific evidence that it can help you. But we may not be able to tell you exactly what to do for your condition, especially if it’s headache or migraine.

Migraine therapy, including hydrotherapy, has often focused on heat and cold. Depending on how you use it, heat and cold may be beneficial or actually make symptoms worse – which means you may need to do some experimenting.

One study on hydrotherapy and migraine suggested warm arm and foot baths, combined with ice massage for the head, improved quality of life when combined with drug treatment (in other words, it was better than the drug treatment alone). (Here’s some helpful information on ice massage)

Many people recommend hydrotherapy with heat (for example, a warm bath) combined with massage, even if it’s self-massage.

A warm bath is often recommended. However, even a warm bath could trigger or increase symptoms for a migraine patient.

This is an excellent article about how to take a warm bath that actually helps – it has some great tips that should give you the maximum benefit, turning a bath into a migraine fighter: A Better Hot Bath

Other variations of hydrotherapy include:

• Run cold water over the back of the head for three minutes at the first sign of headache.
• Hot foot bath with an ice pack on the back of the neck
• Gentle exercise in a whirlpool.

Common tips include drinking lots of water, keeping your head cool, and combining any hydrotherapy with massage, pressure point therapy, or stretching.

What types of hydrotherapy have you tried that have helped the most? Do you use hydrotherapy to ease symptoms, or have you found it a useful preventative?

More sources and resources:

• Headache Treatment: Hydrotherapy
• Hydrotherapy – Topic Overview
• Scientific Evidence-Based Effects of Hydrotherapy on Various Systems of the Body
• Improvement in anxiety and pain after whole body whirlpool hydrotherapy among patients with myofascial pain syndrome.
• Modern Hydrotherapy for the Massage Therapist