I’m not sure how everyone feels about spa treatments but I think it can generally be agreed that good ones don’t come cheap but they do have a magically therapeutic way about them. Little known fact of appreciation is that spa is actually a form of balneotherapy – the treatment of various maladies through bathing.
Balneotherapy is a celebrated form of natural therapy because it makes use of natural elements such as climatic factors, chronoboiological and circadian rhythmic phases as well as natural herbal substances to promote healing – and heal balneotheraphy really does; From nagging skin problems like Psoriasis to serious issues like neuromuscular disorders.
Now the common treatments involve a good soak in the hot springs, mineral baths, the dead sea as well as healing botanical formulas, but lately a new (well it’s not that new, just maybe more popular is certain places than others) form of spa treatment is gaining popularity – Doctor Fish!
I believe the spa treatment originates from Turkey, but I’m certain it is a hit in Asia.
The fish spa therapy works by soaking in a bath of fish, but not just any ordinary fish, specifically the Garra Rufa which are amazing little critters with the ability to produce healthy, glowing results from even the most flaky, dried or diseased epidermis. But don’t be mislead, because it isn’t the water with the therapeutic ability to heal, instead it is the little fish eating away at your crusty, scabby and diseased epidermis to allow for the regrowth of new healthy skin (the fish also secretes an enzyme called diathanol which famed to improve skin regeneration).
Well if you’re anything like me, then you’re probably going to cringe – not at the idea of having fishes peck at you (gives a whole new meaning to the phrase swimming with the fishes) but instead at sharing the pool of fish with perfect strangers –apparently they won’t just be strangers but instead strangers with likely skin problems! But the fish takes care of that. You’d probably expect that the pool will be a disgusting mess of skin flakes but it isn’t because the fish actually consumes the dead/troubled epidermis and they won’t die from it.
It’s more likely that the use of Doctor Fish is classified as Ichthyotherapy – the use of fresh water or marine organisms as agents of skin wound/condition cleansing, but the fact is, just like balneotheraphy, it’s all natural healing courtesy of nature.
