I'm looking for places that offer infrared suana use to the general public in the boston area. I live in Cambridge, Ma and would like to add this to my current treatment plan but having trouble finding one. Thanks...Scottie
Posted by Keebler (Member # 12673) on :
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okay -- I came back to correct something and read your note again. you want a PUBLIC sauna, not to buy one.
Well, if you find one you might ask what brand they have and then make sure it will be okay for you.
Good luck. Infrared Saunas can be wonderful and very helpful.
A few months ago there was a thread here about that. You might search - either sauna or infrared. There is one article on how to make your own - sort of.
However, be careful about any High Tech Health brand infrared sauna.
A friend of mine had the very same problems as described below - the HTH company would not let her return hers. No refund. she is stuck with a toxic sauna now.
Not all the HTH saunas were bad, but it seems at least many were and they did not make good for the customers. Perhaps some customers with chemical sensitivites noticed what others would not, but plywood is not good for anyone.
Heavenly Heat brand - with lots of glass seems to be very good.
[Autism-Mercury] Re: Ready to Buy a Sauna, Any Advice?
Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2007
Excerpt:
We've been doing sauna for a few years with great success for all family members who've been doing it. The mercury came pouring out pretty fast, along with a lot of other metals and other toxins that DMSA and DMPS don't touch (such as pesticides and chemicals).
We have a unit with dry heat and FIR. You can turn on just the FIR, just the dry heat, or both at the same time. Gives maximum flexibility. Our doctor told us that some people sweat more with FIR, some with dry heat, and some with both, and that this can change during a person's healing path.
. . . Personally, I find I can't break much of a sweat with just FIR, but with both, I can really dump it out. I usually do 20 minutes with both and then another 10 minutes of just dry heat. If I do FIR for the whole time, I find I'm still sweating long after I'm done with my shower. Our son, now age 9, does 20 minutes of dry heat and FIR at the current time. This produces a great sweat, but doesn't overdo it.
DR. CONSULTED - HEAVENLY HEAT GLASS SAUNA SUGGESTED
We did a lot of research before getting our sauna including talking to lots of folks with multiple chemical sensitivity since sauna was just getting started in autism circles when we bought ours in 2004. We also consulted about sauna brands with [a doctor] who is widely known as the sauna guru in the US~~he's been using sauna to treat chemical sensitivity patients since the late 1970s. What came out of this research was that the brand most trusted to be free of toxins among and for folks with chemical sensitivity is Heavenly Heat.
The (HH) units are made of solid pieces of poplar and glass and do not have any glues, plywood, laminated wood, vinyls, presswood, etc. They (HH)are screwed together. A lot of the brands have glues used to hold the unit together or to laminate pieces of wood together and the glue can be toxic. Many manufacturers deny that the glue is toxic, but I'm not so sure this applies to everyone as I know too many people who have had bad reactions to it.
FROM THIS LINK - ABOUT HIGH TECH HEALTH SAUNAS
You asked about High Tech Health saunas. I have never used one myself but I personally know more than a few multiple chemical sensitivity folks who bought a High Tech Health sauna and couldn't use it because they got sicker from the outgassing of formaldehyde (apparently some plywood or fiberboard or something behind the poplar) and possibly the glue.
Each of these folks was assured by High Tech Health that there was no toxic glue, no plywood, no formaldehyde etc. Just to see what the problem was after the sauna made him so sick, one friend, a doctor, cut part of his open to see what was inside (some plywood) and had his professionally tested by an industrial hygenist.
The testing showed high levels of formaldehyde outgassing. A friend of another friend experienced the same results with formaldehyde on hers.
Another friend tried to return her High Tech Health sauna under their guarantee after it made her sick from formaldehyde outgassing. She ran into all sorts of problems with High Tech Health, such as them avoiding her calls for six months, and when they did finally authorize the return, they lied to her that the sauna was so damaged during return shipping that they would not refund her any money.
Fortunately for her, they had good proof that it was in perfect condition since it was personally delivered back to High Tech Health by a friend of theirs who was a trucker.
I know there are many autism families using High Tech Heath and not being noticeably bothered by outgassing toxins, but you might want to check it out very carefully as we are all different and each of our kids has different sensitivities and levels of sensitivity.
Just to see what would happen, I sat in a High Tech Health sauna for a few minutes at a recent conference. I got a headache pretty quickly. My son went in with me and he started stimming right away (stimming is usually gone unless we get an exposure to something he's allergic or sensitive to). We are both sensitive. But, even if we weren't I'd want the most toxin-free unit I could find.
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We have gone to so much time and trouble to clean up our home environment, school environment, etc., that to me, it would only make sense to do with with the sauna as well. We are trying to get rid of plastics, synthetics, formaldehyde, etc. throughout the house to lower our immune loads so that our bodies can focus on the more important tasks of healing rather than detoxing new chemicals.
BTW, poplar is considered the least allergic of all woods, but I have met a few folks along the way who are allergic even to poplar. One nice thing about the Heavenly Heat sauna is that you can get 1,2,3, or all 4 walls made from glass to cut down on the wood amounts. We have three walls made from glass and find it very nice. It's very heavy glass and I never fear it breaking.
BASSWOOD?
[a doctor] in the upper Midwest said at the USAAA conference that some of his patients have had bad reactions to saunas made from BASSWOOD (I don't know what brand).
[the environmental doctor] told us that woods like pine, redwood, fir, etc, have a high chance of making a sensitive patient worse due to the terps outgassing (this is something natural in the wood). Plastic and vinyl, of course, will be outgassing large amounts of toxic petrochemicals. Best to avoid them!!!