"How Can Hydro Therapy Help You?"
Hydro therapy, formerly called hydropathy involves the use of water internally or externally, either hot or cold, or alternating both for soothing pains and treating diseases.
The use of hydro therapy to treat rheumatic diseases has a long history, and has been recorded in ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilizations.
Egyptian royalty bathed with essential oils and flowers, while the Romans popularised communal public baths for their citizens.
It has been long accepted that hot springs can improve your health by increasing the blood circulation, and even Hippocrates prescribed bathing in spring waters to help sickness.
Sebastian Kneipp (1821-97) a 19th century monk is said to be the father of hydro therapy, and he believed that diseases could be cured by using water to eliminate the waste from the body, dissolve matter containing disease, remove diseased matter from the body, and strengthen it by restoring cleansed blood to the tissues and maximizing the circulation.
His book My Water Cure was published in 1886, and translated into a wide range of languages.
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"Hydro Therapy Is The Use Of Water To Revitalize, Maintain, And Restore Health."
Hydro therapy treatments include saunas, steam baths, foot baths, sitz baths, and the application of cold and hot compresses.
Today, hydro therapy is used to treat musculoskeletal disorders such as arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, spinal cord injuries, patients suffering burns, spasticity, and stroke or paralysis patients.
Hydro therapy is also widely used to treat orthopaedic and neurological conditions in dogs and horses and to improve their fitness.
Immersion, and exercising in water, has always been a popular hydro therapy.
Thousands of years of treatments have built an enormous amount of expertise, but the alleged benefit has had little supporting evidence from science, until approximately 30 years ago.
New research, mainly in Germany, has focused on the cost effectiveness of hydro therapy, versus other alternative forms of treatment.
Hydro therapy is very popular in Europe and Asia, where people "take the waters" at hot springs and mineral springs. |
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In North America, it is often recommended as self care by naturopathic doctors.
"There Is A Distinct Physiological Basis To Hydro Therapy."
Cold is stimulating, and causes superficial blood vessels to constrict, pushing the blood to internal organs.
Hot water is relaxing, and causes the blood vessels to dilate and helps to removes wastes from body tissue.
Due to its mineral content, water taken internally can have a laxative, diuretic, phlegmatic or diaphoretic effect.
Used externally, water has the power to improve blood and lymph circulation, relax tension in the tissue, alleviate pain and calm down the nervous system. |
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There is no drug on the market that can rival the number of beneficial and physiological effects that water therapy is capable of producing, which is generally widely available, and cheap.
"Did You Know That; there are no substances known to man that possess as many remedial and health-promoting qualities as water."
Cold applications are helpful to reduce the sensitivity of the nerve endings which signal pain sensations, and pain caused by inflammation can be eased with ice, or alternating with hot and cold methods, while general anxiety which increases the perception of pain, can be treated extremely well by the use of a neutral bath or wet sheet pack.
In general terms cold water is more helpful than hot for injuries and inflamed areas, and any hot hydro therapy methods should almost always end with a short cold application.
Hydro therapy is widely used in the home nowadays, together with a great number of different products, which are available to help almost all of the previously mentioned conditions.
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