A 26-year-old Chinese programmer who got a vigorous neck massage to relieve pain narrowly avoided permanent paralysis after suffering a stroke.

Xiao Zhang (pseudonym), a young IT professional from Changsha, China’s Hunan Province, often suffered from neck pain due to spending many hours at his desk. After learning that traditional massage could help relieve neck pain, he decided to try it out at a local massage parlor. Everything was going great until he felt a sharp pain in his neck during a more vigorous maneuver by the massage therapist, which was shortly followed by a strong headache. He didn’t think too much of these symptoms, but the very next morning, he woke up with numbness and weakness of the left side of his body, as well as slurred speech. Scared, the 26-year-old rushed to the Second People’s Hospital of Hunan Province, where he was diagnosed with a secondary cerebral infarction.

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The whole of Thailand was shaken by the death of a young singer as a result of getting a neck-twisting massage that left her with a herniated spine disk in her neck.

Doctors in Thailand started issuing warnings against getting neck-twisting massages after the tragic death of Phing Chyada, a young woman from Udon Thani who reportedly died from complications related to neck massage sessions she underwent at a studio in her home city. According to Chyada’s mother, she started experiencing shoulder pain a couple of months ago, and instead of going to a hospital, she opted to visit a local massage studio. She had always loved massages, so she thought it would be a good way to relieve pain. Only two days after the neck-twisting massage session, the young woman started feeling pain in her neck as well, and things only got worse from there.

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