WOMEN &HEALTH

Hydrotherapy for Home Use

by Wegi Louise Massotherapist

Using water to treat ailments of body (and spiritmind) is as ancient as women healers. Although hydrotherapy as a science is relatively recent (1850's on), the basic techniques have remained the same and are being used in new age health care.

The principle involved in hydrotherapy is the application of hot and/or cold water which opens and closes the vessels of the circulatory system, causing a flushing of fatigued or damaged tissue. The human

body contains 7 miles of blood and lymph vessels which transport oxygen and other nutrients into each cell and carry wastes and toxins out of cells to organs of elimination. When a body part experiences physical trauma, such as a sprained ankle or muscle tension, the normal bodily process may require therapeutic intervention. The goal of hydrotherapy-is to assist, the body in its natural process of flushing. out waste products and bringing nourishing elements into the area having difficulty functioning.

The techniques of hydrotherapy are accessible, inexpensive, and simple to follow. Listed below are

several forms of hydrotherapy and their respective benefits for some common conditions. Please note that exercise and massage are effective treatments to the same end results described here for hydrotherapy.

Baths:

Warm (90°-100°) 10-12 minutes; lowers blood pressure, relaxes nerves.

Use: Promotes general relaxation.

Cool (70°-80°) 3 minutes; stimulates. (Caution: Do not start with a cold body-exercise briefly first.) Use: Combats fatigue.

Hot (100°-105°, built up slowly) 15 minutes. (Note: Drink a glass of water before soaking in hot bath.) Add 1 lb. Epsom salts to tub water. Don a terrycloth bathrobe immediately, go to bed, and cover up for at least 30 minutes.

Use: Relieves joint stiffness and muscular soreness.

Drinking:

6 to 8 glasses daily (preferably spring water). Cold Paks:

Use alcohol gel picnic paks sold in discount stores. Wrap pak in cold, damp towel and place directly on inflamed area (back of neck or forehead for headaches) for 5 minutes or less if uncomfortable. Use: Fevers, headaches, first aid for bruised and swollen tissue.

Hot Paks:

Buy "moist heat" commercial pad or wring out towels in heated water. Place pak direcly on inside of joints or muscle tissue for 8-10 minutes. If using hot,

Boos, Bravos and Tidbits

BRAVO to Cleveland Women Working for continuing to pressure the Government to move on the National City Bank case. On May 20 the Department of Labor filed a rare administrative complaint against the bank charging it with race and sex discrimination. After all the foot-dragging, National City Bank now has 20 working days within which to request a hearing before an Administrative Law Judge or admit their guilt.

BOO to all those who have forgotten the Stouffers/Nestles boycott. It's difficult to keep track of all the Stouffer-owned businesses in town, but the Rusty Scupper is one of them and needs your continued lack of support. Several women patronized the restaurant after the recent WomenSpace annual meeting, perhaps forgetting the role their dollars play in the fight against oppression of third-world women abroad.

BOO to the Massachusetts Power and Light Company for their recent attempt to shift the blame for *nuclear power onto women. In their new film, called Atom and Eve, they depict a charming, youngish female with inordinates desires for all the electrical equipment she has been conditioned to consider her birthright floating gracefully in a flowing blue chiffon gown from washing machine to refrigerator, to deep-freeze to microwave oven. The male narrator explains that the only way to meet women's needs for electrical applicances is more power...by building more nuclear plants, of course. (Common Ground, May-June, 1980)

BRAVO to local NOW members, long absent from

L-ege$\atxeW $42 kW \09er onut Page 10/What She Wants/June, 1980

Cleveland area activist events, for their showing at the anti-Carter demonstration the evening the President appeared at the Cleveland Plaza at his $150 a plate fundraiser. Carrying. ERA placards and shouting vigorously to the onlookers on the street and in cars, the women were a welcome sight at the multi-issue protest.

Rope in a pair

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of our Western styled hats and ride into prime fashion territory, pardar. \ 8.00-22.00

we're all STOLE IN VARN and What start

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Petra Kira (la brands pomeranie band. 300

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To protest this example of violence against women in the media, call the Higbee Company at 379-7622 and ask for the Public Relations Department.

wet towel, cover it with plastic to retain heat. Use: Stiff or congested joints, muscular soreness.

Hand/foot Soak:

Make hot Epsom salt solution by adding 1 lb. of salts to basin or pail filled with hot water. Soak hand/foot for 5 minutes, then massage hand/foot under water, working fingers/toes and rotating joints. Soak again for 5 minutes. Massage peanut oil (pure) over joints and up wrist/ankle.

Use: Arthritis.

Vapor or Steam:

Steam up bathroom and sit in room, relaxing. Make curtain out of a towel over pot of simmering water. (Caution: Do not use steam kettle.)

Use: Head cold congestion, sinus headaches.

These hydrotherapy techniques provide women with another alternative to help them take charge of their health.

Contraceptive Manufacturers Called on False Advertising

(Hersay) The manufacturers of the vaginal contraceptive suppositories Encare, Semicid, and S' Positive have agreed in an out-of-court settlement with the Federal Trade Commission to stop advertising these products as having the same effectiveness as IUD's and birth control pills. The FTC ordered the firms to stop the advertising claims after receiving numerous compaints, which charged the contraceptives' makers with deceptive advertising.

*

One ad for Encare, for example, called the suppository "the most talked about contraceptive since the pill." An ad for Semicid read, "Now you can say goodbye to the pill, the IUD, diaphragms, foams, creams, and drippy jellies.”

The firms have agreed that any future advertising will only equate the effectiveness of the suppositories with vaginal foams and not imply that they prevent conception in a medically new way.

3

New Disease Strikes Women

(Hersay) The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, says a newly identified disease called toxic shock syndrome is striking young women of child-bearing age with increasing frequency.

Since last October, 55 cases of the disease have been reported. The cause of the disease is unknown. It strikes with a high fever, vomiting and diarrhea and is sometimes accompanied by a sore throat, headache and muscle pain, according to Disease Control Center researchers.

The CDC says that victims of the disease generally go into shock within 48 hours and develop a rash. Ten to fifteen percent of the women who contract the strange disease die, the Center says.

Researchers at the Center report that no effective treatment for the disease has been found. It reportedly affects many of the body's major organs, including the heart, lungs and central nervous system. The Center reports that most cases have turned up in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Utah and Idaho. Individual cases, however, have also been reported in other states.

Physicians are being asked to send any and all information on the disease to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.