After hearing Aajonus speak on interviews about the hot baths,
we were convinced that we needed to do this therapy. We have a big, deep bathtub. It's 25 years old, and we never used it. So, we got a candy thermometer to check the water temperature. We keep the water temp between 106 and 108 degrees. It takes 2 loads of hot water to fill up the tub. We drain one hot-water-heater load into the tub, cover the tub (with a make-shift cover) to hold in the heat while the water heater heats up another load -- then we drain that load into the tub.
It registers around 108 degrees when we get into the tub.
We just slide the cover back and get into the tub, with our heads sticking out. (Only one of us can get into the tub at a time.) You stay very warm that way. We also heat up the bathroom with our electric space heater, so it's warm in the room to begin with. I have only worked up to 10 to 15 minutes, and Keith up to 20. But, we go a second step. Right after we get out of the tub and dry off, we immediately get into a bed in a warm room, and wrap ourselves (including our heads) in towels and blankets for half an hour (or more if we fall asleep). We look like mummies with a small breathing hole over our face. Boy do we sweat! We have a regular infrared sauna that we used to use, and we never sweated like we do in the hot bath and bed. We switched over to the hot bath after we heard Aajonus say that he felt the sauna was too high a temperature.
Keith has had some amazing detoxes through this. During his third hot-bath-bed session, he was smelling the organic solvent toluene coming out of his breath. He started smelling this while he was in the hot bath, and it continued on during the bed-sweating session. Over 35 years ago, my husband worked for several years in a plastic manufacturing plant as a chemical engineer. Without mask or fan, he breathed in toluene and other bad chemicals 8 hours per day.
This stuff was detoxing out of his body.
It was amazing to us, after all these years, -- to the point where he could smell it. It's funny -- he hasn't smelled it since, during any of the subsequent hot-bath-bed sessions. Another amazing detox episode was this past week, during his weekly hot-bath-bed-sweating session. He started feeling bad when he was soaking in the water -- just feeling yucky. Shortly after he got wrapped up in his "mummy" outfit in bed, he started violently chilling and shaking. I turned up the heater in the room, and put a lot more blankets on him. His forehead was not hot to the touch, so I knew he wasn't running a high temperature. He started having an "acid" stomach, which is not normal for him. He said he felt like he was getting a Dengue Fever flashback. (He contracted Dengue Fever -- a mosquito born infection like malaria -- while he was in high school in India. At that time, he had violent chills and shakes for 2 days. That was 47 years ago.) He has never had chills and shakes in all these years until this episode. This lasted for about 5 hours. We figure he was detoxing the Dengue Fever, because it was the same symptoms.
Between the Primal Diet and Hot Baths, we are seeing quick results.
We remember that Aajonus said that sometimes the body will dump it's toxins into the stomach to be neutralized by the stomach acids. During the 5 hours of chills and shakes, his stomach stayed very acid -- almost feeling like throwing up. He stayed in bed much of the next day, feeling wiped out and not hungry. But, the chills and shakes and reactions were over. So, we feel he had gone through another major detox.
The reason we get into bed to sweat after the hot baths is because of an incident I had when I was in High School. One time I had flu symptoms real bad. I took a real hot bath, because I was aching so bad. And then got into my bed,,, And I started sweating in the hot bed. After this I felt so much better. So, when Aajonus talked about the hot baths, I though about my experience in high school, and thought we should add the bed-sweating session to the hot-bath session. :o)
Happy, healthy new year!
Linda & Keith B.