Of all the home treatments, hydrotherapy is the oldest, most popular and most useful. Like all of the true remedies, hydrotherapy requires more skill, effort, and patience than do many other forms of therapy. The skill required is not so great that all can, with diligence and patience, master it.
During my healing experiences with both breast cancer and stage-4 cancer I utilized many forms of hydrotherapy. I’m a true believer in the healing power of hydrotherapy. In this section, I will share specific hydrotherapy treatments I did and still do today including:
- Hot & Cold Showers
- Detox Ginger Baths
- High Energy Baths
- Foot Baths
- Cold Sheet Treatment
What is hydrotherapy?
Hydrotherapy is a method of treating disease by using water at different temperatures and in different ways. The water may be swallowed, or injected into body cavities, or applied to the outside of the body by baths or pads.
The history of hydrotherapy probably goes as far back as human history. Natives in various parts of the earth sought the healing effect of natural waters, mineral springs, sea water, rivers and springs. When medical science saw its birth, healing disease with water was recognized as one of the most important therapeutic modalities. Hippocrates, Celus, Galen and other ancient greats of medicine praised water for its many curative properties. In all major ancient civilizations, bathing was held in esteem as an important health-building and disease-preventative measure (How To Get Well, Paavo Airola – Health Plus Publishers 1974). The ancient Romans built and used public bathhouses for therapeutic purposes.
Doctors Calvin and Agatha Thrash, in their book Home Remedies copyright 1981, mention in their chapter on the history of hydrotherapy that for years hydrotherapy has been a respected method of treatment in the United States. It was recognized that the Brand Bath (spraying and sponging with cold water accompanied by vigorous rubbing) was considered very useful in the treatment of typhoid fever in 1927. It was recognized as "powerfully stimulating to the nervous system, fortifying the patient to conquer the infection." It was felt that the benefits accrued through the circulatory system, the immune mechanisms and the neuromuscular system. What history tells us is that hydrotherapy is an ancient and popular therapeutic modality.
Water has a number of unique physical properties that makes it especially well suited to be a therapeutic agent. Water has the greatest specific heat of any common substance. That means that it takes more energy to change the temperature of water than that of any other common substance. This means that water can store more energy in itself than other common substances. Yet at one and the same time water is a good conductor of heat energy. This means that anything put in water will be powerfully influenced with respect to temperature because water is such a good conductor of heat energy. Water will conduct heat 27 times more effectively than air.
Water shares a property with air, in that it completely envelops and surrounds intimately anything immersed in it. Water is completely compatible with the human body, in fact the human body contains about 75% water. This means that the human body cannot be allergic or be irritated by water and that the heat conduction properties of the body and water are similar because the body contains such a high percentage of water. Finally water is the universal solvent. Just about anything will dissolve in water. This means that water is just about the most powerful cleaning agent we have. And in spite of all these special qualities of water it is probably the most easily available and therefore the cheapest commodity known to mankind still today.
In summary: the most important properties of water from a treatment standpoint are:
1. Water is non-irritating, non-allergic, and totally compatible with human physiology both inside and outside of the body.
2. Water is heat conducting and at the same time greatly heat storing in capacity so that it is the ideal agent for manipulating body temperature.
3. Water is totally conformable to the body surfaces. This means that it makes an intimate interface with whatever it comes in contact, which greatly facilitates its ability to affect the temperature the object it contacts.
4. Water is inexpensive in spite of all its marvelous properties.
Hot and cold treatments are indicated to stimulate the person's immune system and to enhance the body's local fight against infection or inflammation. Thus the list of conditions where hot and cold are indicated are just about endless because the different types of infections and inflammations the body is prone to is just about endless.
Specific examples of indications for hot and cold include:
1. The common cold.
2. A local infection such as an ingrown, infected toenail.
3. A local inflammation such as a tennis elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, sprains, tendonitis, chronic bursitis, etc.
CAUTION: Check with your doctor if you are pregnant, prone to seizures or have an existing health concern before doing any hydrotherapy treatment.
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