You may think that there are easier ways to exfoliate or have a pedicure or a manicure than immersing your body or body parts in a hot spa pool with hundreds of voracious fish. You would be wrong!
Our revolutionary new Doctor Fish™ Spa Therapy makes use of unique little “Doctor Fish™” (Garra rufa obtusa) as a means to exfoliate and “micro” massage the skin, as well as a treatment for psoriasis, a painful skin complaint that afflicts many people.
With the growing popularity of alternative health and beauty treatments, this unique fish species has caught our interest since we are constantly seeking for new unconventional treatments with therapeutic benefits.
Originally from southern Turkey and northern Syria, for centuries Doctor Fish™ have been known for softening and cleansing the skin of people who bathed in hot springs where the fish darted about. As the legend goes, the healing powers of the fish were discovered in modern times by a shepherd and his flock in Turkey in 1917. Apparently He stumbled into marshy ground with an injured foot and found the open wound besieged by these little fish. The wound healed and eventually word got out to the outside world about these efficacious little “man-eaters”.
Worldwide, these Doctor Fish™have made a name for themselves as “bio-therapists”, “dermatologists” and “pedicurists”. Members of the carp family, this species of fish thrives in hot water (up to 43 degrees centigrade!), which make them ideal “hot plunge pool companions”.
It sounds crazy, but don’t knock it until you try it – it is suprisingly fun. These normally vegetarian fish home in on areas of dry skin, especially around around heels and soles of the feet and finger nails. For a psoriasis sufferer, the fish target the plaques — areas of sore, red and thickened skin.
Our Doctor Fish™ even have characters of their own and are termed “lickers” or “strikers” – according to their temperament. Our more benign critters, the “lickers”, are the younger ones and are about 2 to 3cm long. They cruise along the surface of your skin and gently nibble and suck off loose skin flakes. The larger beasts are the “strikers”, who make use of “hit-and-run” process. They are really fast and dart in, grab a snack and swim off to enjoy their “kill” at leisure.
The British Association of Dermatologists, averrs that this removal of superfluous skin flakes aids exfoliation, particularly with psoriasis sufferers, since “it may help topical medications to penetrate, which is why some people may notice some improvement, but we are not aware of any other proven benefits”.
