Dry brushing

Dry brushing

I discovered an interesting phenomenon recently. Every morning for the last two or three weeks, I’ve been brushing my arms and legs with a stiff bristled round hair, brush, and found it seems to increase my circulation and relieve some of my morning stiffness and pain from PMR. I thought this was very strange but since it was working, I kept doing it.

By way background I’m a 68 year old male and have had PMR for about 3 1/2 years. I was on prednisone for a year went off it for a year and then went back on it for six months because I couldn’t tolerate the pain, stiffness and fatigue. I’ve been off prednisone for about seven months now and mostly find the pain and stiffness tolerable except when I try to do too much physical activity in the morning.

I decided to google whether brushing the skin actually increases circulation and found that it’s actually a thing called dry brushing, mostly used to exfoliate the skin, but there is evidence that it improves circulation and also helps drain lymphatic fluid that may accumulate in the body and can cause inflammation. Some of the articles I read also claim that dry brushing reduces inflammation.

For those of you that have thin skin from prednisone or sensitive skin if you decide to try this, it’s best that you try it first with a relatively soft bristle brush, so not to do any damage to your skin. Articles that I’ve read have cautioned against dry brushing when you have any kind of skin condition cuts or brakes in your skin.

I find it has worked great for me and have actually been doing it more than once a day now. I’m going to try it tonight before bed to see if I have less pain and stiffness when I wake up in the morning.

I’d be very interested in the results any of you have if you try dry brushing. Please let me know if it works for you.

See the article below for more details and benefits of dry brushing

Good luck to you all and I hope you all feel better soon.