A growing number of people are finding relief from the aches and pains caused by aging, injuries and disease through the use of thermal accupressure massage beds. These beds are not for sleeping; they provide a deep, mechanized massage combined with “radiant far infrared” heat therapy and gentle spinal manipulation.

Users report the reduction or disappearance of muscle and joint pain, increased energy and improvements in such ailments as high blood pressure and diabetes.

Thermal acupressure massage beds are sold across Canada under a variety of brand names, including those from Ceragem International Inc., Migun and Inarex Co. Ltd. (all based in Korea). Ceragem and Migun beds have been licensed as medical devices by Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The beds typically cost between $3,300 and $4,000.

Adam Cheng, who operates a massage-bed retail location in Mississauga, Ont., along with his son, Richard, calls Ceragem’s marketing strategy the “Asian way of doing business” and a “soft sell.” Typically, the shops make several beds available for anyone to try a 40-minute preprogrammed massage. Customers can usually try as many massages and as often as they like free of charge. Some people may come for years without ever buying a bed, Cheng says. Migun and Inarex beds are often sold in a similar fashion.

“The bed is of tremendous assistance in relaxing my patients,” says Douglas Palmer, a London, Ont.-based chiropractor who has both Ceragem and Migun beds in his office. “It’s great for stress relief and loosening up stiff muscles. It makes patients more limber, and the chiropractic adjustments are, therefore, easier and more effective.”

The thermal massage beds work by moving heated stone rollers along the length of the user’s spine. These rollers are programmed to stop at intervals along the way from the sacrum to the skull, lifting various sections of the spine and stretching them, and applying pressure to key points. Panels under the mattress send deep-penetrating RFI heat (a kind of light found between visible light and microwave rays on the electromagnetic scale) to deeper regions of the user’s body.
@page_break@Ian Town, owner of West Hill Chiropractic in Scarborough, Ont., says the combination of spinal flexing and RFI heat decreases inflammation and increases patient mobility: “Often pain is caused by swelling and muscle tightness, and a decrease in swelling and tightness decreases pain. The machine passively moves the joints through a range of motion.”

Massage beds will not cure damage such as long-term disc degeneration, Town says, but will increase users’ mobility. The beds also can alleviate a variety of internal health issues related to inflammation, such as irritable bowel syndrome.

“The bed totally changed my life,” says Stan Belza, a 60-year-old retired Toronto police sergeant who has been using a Ceragem bed daily for four years.

Belza was previously scheduled to have knee-replacement surgery to relieve excruciating pain caused by arthritis. A chance meeting with a fellow arthritis sufferer in his doctor’s office led him to try the massage bed.

After Belza’s first session on a bed at a local Ceragem location, he says, he was pain-free for 45 minutes. Another session the next day gave him 24 hours of relief. He bought a bed and, within two weeks, was climbing up and down stairs and playing 18 holes of golf without pain.

The beds incorporate a variety of techniques that have been used in Eastern medicine for thousands of years. Spinal massage relaxes the muscles and tendons around the spine, unblocking nerves and adjusting the spine, creating more space between the discs. The pressure applied by the bed’s rollers, combined with the heat, stimulates meridians or energy channels, encouraging the flow of energy throughout the body. The effect is similar to acupuncture, but without the needles.

The rollers are made from nephrite jade, which is known for its ability to hold and transmit heat and emit negative ions, which are thought to have a variety of anti-aging and regenerative properties. The rollers project two kinds of light — helium and far infrared — which penetrate skin and underlying tissue and are believed to cause the body’s molecules to vibrate against one another and produce heat. The far infrared light stimulates blood flow, aiding in detoxification and shrinking inflamed tissue, while the helium light strengthens white blood cells and improves the immune system. IE