DO-IT-YOURSELF SAUNA

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If you do not have your own sauna, what can you do and how can you use fever to stimulate and strengthen your own defenses against infections and other diseases?

Here are few things you can do:

Do not suppress or reduce, but support and sustain fever in colds and acute infections.

You can take Schlenz-bath, as I described in this chapter, in your own bathroom. If you plug the emergency outlet with some pieces of cloth or paper, you will be able to raise the water in your tub so that it will cover your whole body—but be careful not to flood your house!

Physical activity to the point of heavy perspiration is almost as beneficial, if not more so, than the overheating bath. Physical exertion may actually raise body temperature several degrees. A combination of heavy exercise or exhausting, perspiring games, with swimming in a pool or the ocean can substitute for a Finnish sauna.

Even if you don’t have a bath tub, a do-it-yourself sauna in your own bedroom can be made as follows: Wrap yourself in a heavy bath sheet. Put a plastic or rubber sheet on your bed to protect it from damage by perspiration. Take one or two hot water bottles and lie on the rubber sheet. Cover yourself with an electric blanket turned on high, leaving just a crack for breathing. Use several heavy blankets if necessary. Remain until profuse sweating occurs—half an hour or more. Finish your do-it-yourself sauna with a cold shower or rub-down.

Warning. Although a fever is a welcome, constructive symptom and is perhaps the best “medicine your body could have,” and therefore should not be suppressed or lowered, but supported and sustained, I do not want to leave you with the impression that fever should be simply ignored. Fever is a serious matter, good and beneficial, but serious nevertheless. In small babies particularly the heat-regulating mechanism is not fully developed and a sudden temperature rise may cause convulsions. The sudden rise of temperature in adults to over 103° F should be watched carefully as it may become dangerous, according to some authorities. Some other doctors believe that fevers up to 104° or 106° are not harmful in themselves.6 It is wise, however, to have an understanding doctor supervise a patient with a high fever and watch for possible dangers in the development of the disease.

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