FIR Sauna Tips
Thanks Daisymay for your input and info on the FIR saunas...
I used a FIR sauna for roughly half an hour to an hour a day for 6-12 months (I didn't stick to the routine but that was my target). Now I use it as one of many things I do when I relapse.
Some tips on saunas...
- Don't try public saunas, they seem to do more harm than good. Both from what I've been advised by the MCS doc and from by own experience, they made be a lot worse. Opens up your pores and lets in all the wood varnish, the perfumes worn by everyone else who's been in there, etc. All of those factors are why it's only FIR saunas that do the job. So you have to buy your own FIR sauna. Mine was pretty cheap, and turned out to be a fantastic investment.
- Build up gradually, but the aim really is to get a good sweat on. I had a cool bath ready, and I would get a big sweat on, then get into the bath and wash it off, then back into the sauna.
- I also had towels at the ready to wipe the sweat off the seat and off the sauna itself, also to mop my face as I went along so that I could keep going for longer.
- Obviously, drink lots of (filtered) water before, during, and after to replenish your fluids.
- It's really boring, so you need to set it up in front of the TV and watch something - bearing in mind you'll be popping in and out, so ideally something you can dip in and out of, or pause.
- A neat trick for getting a sweat going is to blow cool air onto your face and skin once you start to sweat a little. Tells your body that sweating is working, so then it does it loads more!
- Even though it's boring, enjoy it! Once I'd built it up, I did it quite extreme. I love saunas anyway! Experiment, feel your way through it; for me I enjoy those sensations of getting really hot, till it's pretty painful, and then the relief of the cold, until it's uncomfortable, then warm up again, etc etc. Stretching myself with all that did take my mind off everything else.
Does it work? If so, how, and why?
I can't say for sure, because during that time I was also taking masses of supplements and doing lots of other stuff - I spent a year full-time working on every aspect of diet, lifestyle, environmental advice I could get my hands on. So I don't know exactly what worked, but all together, that year turned things round for me.
I won't go into all the details why now, but I've always known that sweat is critical for me. I seem to 'infect' anything I sleep in or on, and anything I wear, within a few days; once it's infected, it makes me itch to the touch and then all the other symptoms follow. This 'infection' doesn't seem to have any effect on anyone else, other people have been 'exposed' to the stuff that sets me off and nobody's had any adverse effects, short or long term.
I've always assumed the explanation lay in sweating out 'toxins' from the blood, whether chemical toxins or food that leaked from my gut. But the XMRV news puts a different spin on it. I'm not sure what the latest is, but I've seen mentions of sweat as a possible transmission mechanism...
I KNOW for SURE that the pesticide played a HUGE role in my illness, but it would be great to have it documented and diagnosed.
What a horrendous story dreambirdie, what an awful way to be made sick - and to live with the knowledge of how it happened without being able to do anything about it. If the experience of thousands of people counted as 'evidence' then the case would already be proved. In my case, I suspect it was a heater that burned through the carpet while I slept. But there are probably enough toxins in our food and environment to need to look no further than that, for most people.
I think one day all this will be properly understood and we'll know exactly what is/was toxic and why, and what it did. But I've thought about it a lot, and I'm pretty sure there will never be any comeback; we're never going to be compensated for the poisoning that destroyed our lives, and the companies and individuals responsible for doing it are never going to be brought to justice. They will continue to point to the fact that science backed up and approved what they were doing, and they operated within the parameters allowed them. It's hard to live with that injustice and know it won't be righted, but I guess all you can do is the best you can with the hand you've been dealt, same as anyone...
