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What is Hydrotherapy?

Hydrotherapy is the treatment of illness and injury through the use of water, both hot and cold.  Hydrotherapy treatments help your body get rid of toxins that may be causing joint pain and inflammation, help relax muscles, and help relieve pressure on joints and bones.  It also relaxes you, both mentally and physically.

Hydrotherapy has been around for thousands of years.  Ancient bath houses were the center of social interaction in ancient Rome, and hydrotherapy spas are still especially popular in Europe, where many were built in large mansions and estates during the 18th and 19th centuries.  Used to treat common ailments like muscle cramps, muscle weakness, diabetes, circulatory diseases, arthritis, osteoarthritis, back pain, muscle, bone and connective tissue injuries, balance disorders, stress and stress-related disorders, hydrotherapy is fast becoming a popular and beneficial home health treatment, especially among senior.

How Does Hydrotherapy make Me Healthier?
There are two ways that hydrotherapy helps keep your body healthier: thermally and mechanically.

Beneficial Thermal Effects of Hydrotherapy
Warm and cold baths alike create certain reactions in your body tissues that help lessen pain and discomfort and improve the healing process.  Warm baths open up your capillaries (the small blood vessels in your body that are closest to tissues) which leads to 9increased blood flow and circulation, helping your body oxygenate and heal tissue better and get rid of toxins faster.  Heat also slows down your internal organs, and is good at lessening certain types of aches and pains.  Heat increases the production of beneficial body hormones, and stimulates the immune system. Warm, moist air from a hot bath can help open up congested or constricted airways in your lungs, throat and sinuses.  Cold baths lessen inflammation in areas of injury, and help decrease the sensitivity and pain of injured areas.

Beneficial Mechanical Effects of Hydrotherapy
The gentle tingling sensation of air bubbles and the massage-like motion of water jets crate beneficial chemical reactions in you skin and tissues.  This leads to increased circulation, which helps oxygenate tissues and evacuate toxins.  In water, your body weighs only 10% of its normal weight, so there is a large amount of physical stress removed form your joints and bones, helping to relieve pain and discomfort.  This partial weightlessness also helps relax the body, because muscles don’t have to work as hard to keep the body in position and are given a chance to relax.

Treating Common Ailments with Hydrotherapy

The four most popular types of ailments people use hydrotherapy to treat are: arthritis, lower back pain, insomnia and diabetes. 

Benefits of Hydrotherapy for Arthritis
On in six Americans has some type of arthritis.  It’s a fairly common disease that affects our joints and progresses as we age.  Generally, joints swell and become painful and sometimes hard to move, especially after exertion.  The older we get, the more pronounced the symptoms

Doctors recommend warm hydrotherapy for treating arthritis.  It helps by dilating blood vessels in the body, relieving pain and easing the tension in muscles which can become tense as a result of pain.  It has been shown that warm water treatment is far more effective than dry heat treatments, like heating pads.  In some instances, doctors will recommend alternating hot and cold treatments, especially for treating hands and feet.  The repeated dilation of the arteries generally has a more profound effect on the reduction of pain in these areas.

Benefits of Hydrotherapy for Lower Back Pain
Behind colds and the flue, back pain is the #2 reason in the United States for doctor visits.  Back pain can be caused by a number of things, including stiff or sore muscles, diseases, disorders or injuries of the vertebrae and connective tissue, and pinched nerves.  Studies conducted over the last ten years have shown that people who suffer from back pain and who use hydrotherapy as a treatment experience marked reductions in pain versus those people who do not use hydrotherapy.  In addition, people who treat their back pain with hydrotherapy use fewer drugs to control their pain, so they don’t experience any of the negative side effects associated with some of these drugs.