Dr. Mercola, Thanks so much for this site and for the risk you are taking professionally and (I suspect) personally by persisting. We all know what can happen. Quick question. In a recent article you discussed the importance of not washing the skin for several hours after sunbathing to facilitate Vitamin D production. Issues of Vitamin D aside, several infrared sauna manufacturers advise users to "scrape or scratch" their skin while using the sauna. This results, of course, in their coming out of the sauna with great looking skin and towels covered with gray, waxy material. Is there any reason, healthwise, that patients should not do this? Does this disturb any kind of barrier that's best left undisturbed?
without having any scientific evidence to back up this opinion. I think its fine and probably great for you. That is a common practice in Korea for hundreds of years, and I regularly go to a Korean spa for a 'Spa Scrub' which is really more like a human car wash than a spa treatment. A korean woman will have you lay down on a plastic covered massage table and rub you "briskly" (as an UNDERSTATEMENT) in every conceievable place that you can be scrubbed, for 30 to 40 minutes with scrubbing mitts on. As she works, there will be PILES of dead skin covering everrything- then they take a BUCKET of water and douse you several times to get it off, then repeat.
The Koreans who come to the spas and who do this regularly have FANTASTIC skin and are obviously, from looking at them, much healthier than the average American even into old age. Ummmm. Now I want to go get scrubbed!
Kerri Knox, RN
Functional Medicine Practitioner
http://www.easy-immune-health.com
Thanks for your good reply, Kerri. Thoughtful of you, and much appreciated on this end.