Water Therapy

In my last apartment I had a sauna off the bathroom. I know that sounds decadent. I was living in the basement of a man's house that was converted into an apartment with a private entrance. He had built the sauna for himself before the basement was a rental. Renting the apartment to me, he lost the use of it, but that was his choice.

I'm not one for saunas sitting in a small enclosed space sweating to death. I feel like I'm suffocating and with my constant desire for clean, fresh air, the heated air was often intolerable. I much prefer a hot jacuzzi out in the fresh air so at least my lungs would stay cool. I didn't use the sauna for several years and only after I was diagnosed with MCS was it suggested as a treatment type. I found after a bad chemical exposure I could sit in that sauna for thirty minutes and many symptoms would either go away or never show. If the air got too intolerable, I would crack the door open and breathe the fresh air through the opening.

After thirty minutes of sweating, it's optimal to jump into cold water. That's how the Swedish do it. They build their little bake houses right next to a lake or river.  I would jump into a cold shower, not more than five feet away. Brrrrrr...It's definitely a shock to the system, but like swimming in cold water, very invigorating.

The premise is the sauna opens all your pores, sweats out all the toxins and the cold water closes them quick and tightly squeezing any remaining toxins out so they can't get soaked back up by your skin.

You can do this in your shower! Same technique only without the need of a sauna. Shower in the hottest water tolerable for 15-20 minutes. I love being warm and toasty with a shower massaging my skin. Then turn the hot water off completely and stay under freezing cold water for as long as possible. Be sure to turn around so your whole body is exposed. I guarantee you will gasp aloud! Some people cool the water gradually, but I've never been able to do it. It's cold turkey for me or not at all.  It's like an internal massage, forcing your blood to the surface, and retracting it back to your vital organs which energizes and invigorates them. Alternate hot and cold a few times. Your whole body will tingle.

I read it is really good for healing, too. Exposing injured body parts to hot then cold then hot water expedites healing. Hydrotherapy is used by cancer patients and those suffering with depression. Cold water in particular is thought to activate the nervous system and lower brain temperature so this is especially beneficial for depression and it works very similar to electric shock therapy or electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), another treatment used for depression. As a treatment for depression, it is suggested to slowly cool the water as extreme cold can actually negatively affect the brain and worsen a depressed person's mood.

At the conclusion of any water therapy, like massage, drink lots of clean, fresh, filtered water to keep hydrated and to clean toxic residue out your system.

Popular Protocols: Doctor Play

Here are some other ways doctor practice with MCS patients:

IV treatments - Same as supplement therapy only using a direct IV line right into your bloodstream. I've done some minor IVs like magnesium pushes. It seems very unnatural and incredibly invasive to me. Most patients I've watched do this have no complaints, unless no one could find a suitable vein. The few who were crying in pain during the drip left a lasting impression. Not a fan.

Immunotherapy  These are vaccine-like injections are related to the provocation neutralization testing results. Toxins are shot into your system with the premise you should become desensitized to the substance in small doses. Again, very invasive, but hey, if it works for deadly diseases like cholera and malaria, why not toxins?

Bioenergy sublingual treatments Supplements and extracts are used in small doses based on your bioenergy testing results to create desensitization. Very much like immunotherapy except through the digestive tract instead of injected. I tried one of these and I had the opposite effect with symptoms much worse than normal. I was told the dosage needed to be adjusted.  


Energy treatments  The patient lays on a massage table and the practitioner holds their hands over you and does secret stuff to unblock and rebalance your energy flow. Only twice did I feel like it did something. Once I experienced shooting pains down my left arm right after the session making me think I was having a heart attack. The second time the practitioner told me not to do any detoxification that evening or the energy flow would compound it. I forgot those instructions, did some detox cleanses and I had uncontrollable diarrhea in the middle of the night.  Oops! He was right! However, I never felt like the treatments relieved or eliminated the chemical sensitivity nor did my health improve in any way. I must be outstandingly blocked.

NAET (Nambudripad's Allergy Elimination Treatment) This is very much related to the bioenergy testing, pulse testing, muscle testing, energy treatments and immunotherapy. Although I have not had the whole set for chemical sensitivity, I will share my limited experiences.

I knew a doctor who gave a talk on NAET to a group of nurses where I worked and he used me as his demonstration guinea pig. He said most people are allergic to eggs and had me hold a vial formulated to represent eggs. As I held tight, he did whatever he was doing, magically moving hands around and such. I have no idea if it worked as I didn't think I had a problem with eggs. However those bioenergy tests told me I was/am allergic to fertilized eggs?? Maybe I don't have reactions to eggs because I had this done? But I didn't have egg issues before either.

About a year later I was having a bad reaction after going to a funeral (formaldehyde, pesticide-laden flowers, perfumes) and I went to see this doctor again as he was also a chiropractor. I tried to tell him it was the chemicals that were making my head and spine swell causing the excruciating neck pain. I was hoping he could give me an adjustment to ease the pressure.

"No, no," he said. "You are grieving." He badgered me into another NAET treatment for grief. I wasn't grieving. I tried to tell him that but in the end I had hoped maybe he was right and this treatment would take all the pain away. It didn't. What a waste. It kind of put me off the whole NAET thing. I think some doctors get blinded by their enthusiasm for these odd treatments, they refuse to see anything else including the patient. As it is, in all my years and research, I've never met anyone who had benefited from the NAET. As I recall the NAET treatments are very expensive. I'm still open minded, but I'd want a money-back guarantee.

 

Heavy metal chelation using DMPS or EDTA - This is a detoxification IV therapy using incredibly smelly stuff that I'd never in my life trust being siphoned directly into the blood stream to flush (chelate) heavy metals out. Both substances report a host of side effects and it is recommended this is only used as a last resort. I don't get the impression it is used a last resort for most doctors. I've never done this. I've only smelled it and that was good enough for me.


Mercury amalgam removals - It is believed the mercury we have in our cavity fillings are poisoning us. Every time we breathe or eat/drink anything hot they offgas mercury into our bodies contributing to our overload. I've checked into this and they often use plastics to replace the mercury. Hmmm...not sure if plastic in my mouth would be any less toxic?  Still, I've read some people claim removing these heavy metals have made all the difference and I'm sure it contributes toward reducing the toxic overload.


I don't deny some of these treatments do affect our bodies, but I've never personally met anyone who said any of these protocols reduced or eliminated chemical sensitivity specifically.  I've read anonymous reviews claiming people have had miraculous improvement. Are patients really writing the reviews or are doctors advertising their services? Most often I hear from people, "Well, I think it helped...maybe?" Often MCSers will see benefits because of the placebo effect.  We are so desperate for answers we are willing to believe anything works even when it doesn't. Until there is a money-back guarantee or if you have unlimited funds, I wouldn't waste the money.


As cynical as I am, I would love to hear from others who have had positive experiences. Over the years I heard only two success stories. One woman professed a 95% reduction in exposure side effects by being on a raw food diet. Another said after numerous Traditional Chinese Medicine treatments having to do with balancing the north, south, east and west she was able to go to the theater and church for the first time in years without problems. She said the key was finding a quality Chinese medicine practitioner.


Do you have any experiences with these treatments? Any of them work?