Essential oils are used for aromatherapy, which means that their potential benefit comes from how they smell. They can be derived from flowers, herbs, or trees, and their use for aromatherapy is intended “to improve physical, mental, and spiritual well-being,” according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Typically, they’re inhaled using a diffusing device, or diluted (such as with lotion or shea butter) and applied to the skin. While those applications are probably safe for most people, anyone who’s been diagnosed with asthma or reactive airway disease should speak to their doctor before inhaling essential oils. But do essential oils really offer benefits to people with ankylosing spondylitis? “I think mind-body treatments definitely work for some patients with spondylitis, but not many people have studied it,” says Chenchen Wang, MD, director of the Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. There’s no reliable evidence on aromatherapy for AS, but a number of studies do suggest that it may help relieve pain or fatigue in related conditions. Here’s what you should know about how essential oils might help with your AS treatment.
Essential Oils for Joint Pain and Fatigue Relief
There are no published scientific studies on aromatherapy for AS, and barely any for other forms of arthritis. But the limited evidence suggests possible benefits for pain and fatigue. One small study, published in April 2016 in the journal Pain Management Nursing, looked at the effects of an aromatherapy massage in people with rheumatoid arthritis. Scented oils were applied and massaged on the knees of participants for 30 minutes, and this procedure was repeated weekly during home health visits for a total of six weeks. Compared with a similar control group that didn’t receive the treatments, those who received the aromatherapy massage started to report less fatigue following their home health visits on a questionnaire after four weeks, and less pain after two weeks. Aromatherapy massage has also been studied in osteoarthritis, which is even less closely related to AS than rheumatoid arthritis — but similar pain reduction benefits have been found. One study, published in November 2016 in the journal Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice, compared a knee aromatherapy massage using lavender essential oil with both almond essential oil and a control group that received no treatment. Only one treatment was given, and both immediately afterward and one week later, participants in the lavender group reported significantly less pain than the control group, and compared with before the treatment. But there wasn’t a significant difference between the lavender and almond oil groups, indicating that the specific scent may be less important than the overall experience of soothing and relaxation. And four weeks after the treatment, there were no differences between any of the groups in how much pain they reported.
Choosing to Use Essential Oils for Ankylosing Spondylitis
The available evidence shows that using essential oils for aromatherapy is very safe — at least for people without respiratory diseases — with practically no significant risks as long as you follow general recommendations about how to use them. For example, you shouldn’t apply essential oils directly to your skin without first diluting them in a lotion or oil that’s safe to apply to your skin. And if you’re diffusing essential oils into the air, you’ll first need to mix them with water according to the instructions supplied with your diffusing device. But as long as you stick to these precautions, Dr. Wang sees no downside to trying aromatherapy for your AS. In fact, she notes, the American College of Rheumatology recognizes the benefits of mind-body treatments in general for most forms of arthritis. And essential oils in particular, Wang notes, may help “by improving psychological well-being, coping strategies, and self-efficacy — all these kinds of things may help build a patient’s confidence” to help “overcome the negative impact of living with this condition.” It’s worth noting that aromatherapy may not work better overall than other mind-body techniques, such as gentle exercise like yoga or tai chi, meditation, heat or cold therapy, or acupuncture. Potentially, all of these techniques can be “very helpful to improve overall quality of life, and reduce fatigue and anxiety,” says Wang. Ultimately, the choice to use essential oils — or any other mind-body treatment — comes down to individual preference. If you give them a try and they seem to reduce your level of stress, fatigue, anxiety, or pain, these treatments may become an essential part of your strategy for managing AS symptoms.
