For more information about Dead Sea salt therapy

Spa therapy—
For more information about Dead Sea salt therapy for
psoriasis and eczema please call 866-4-MAVENA.
For some psoriasis/psoriatic arthritis patients
clear
1100 W. Central Rd., Ste. 306
Arlington Heights, IL 60005
866-4-MAVENA
(866-462-8362)
www.mavena.com
By Amy Stork
n the 1990s, when Richard Strezo was living in
England, a British colleague noticed psoriasis
lesions on his wrist. She told him that she too had
psoriasis. “I was surprised. I looked at her and she
had perfect skin,” he remembers.
Ask us about free
Dead Sea salt product samples!
His colleague said she had vacationed at a spa at the
Dead Sea two years before, and her psoriasis had
been in remission since. Richard was intrigued. “It just
lodged in my mind, that Dead Sea thing, and I thought,
‘Someday I’ll go there.’ ”
For millennia, people with psoriasis and other disorders have made pilgrimages to the Dead Sea, where
the waters, 10 times as salty as the ocean, are rich in
magnesium and other minerals. The ancient lake lies
1,200 feet below sea level. Atmospheric density there
blocks harmful radiation, extending the amount of
time it is safe to lie in the sun. The increased oxygen in
the air, aficionados say, calms the nerves and relaxes
the mind.
Off to the spa
A decade after his conversation with his colleague,
Richard Strezo was living in West Chicago. Psoriasis
lesions on his back, knees, legs and arms weren’t
responding to steroids or topical treatments. He had
stopped wearing shorts and short-sleeved shirts.
2
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Richard began driving the 25 miles
to Des Plaines, another Chicago
suburb, three times a week for
treatment at the Mavena Derma
Center, a therapeutic spa that
offers “balneo-phototherapy,” a
treatment that uses extremely high
concentrations of Dead Sea salts.
The treatment mimics the Dead
Sea regimen by combining brine
baths with narrow-band UVB light
treatments.
The therapy works, says Mavena Vice President Jerri
McGinnis, because minerals in the salts help the skin
trap hydration, softening the skin and breaking down
thick plaques that characterize psoriasis. UV rays
applied immediately after the brine soak are then able
to penetrate more easily.
Ripple photo © istockphoto.com/Dave Bredeson
© istockphoto.com/Ryan Lane
Dead Sea salt crystals
W
hen he saw an
advertisement for
a new spa that
used Dead Sea salt
baths and narrow-band ultraviolet
light B (UVB) therapy to treat
psoriasis, “it was like something
clicked in my brain.”
After 25 to 30 treatments, most patients are 85 to 90
percent clear of psoriasis and stay that way for about
six months without further treatment, McGinnis says.
Many patients adopt a less intensive maintenance
schedule to prevent remission.
Spa hot spots
are several small spas in town and visitors can be seen
bathing in the lake or applying mud to their skin.
In Saskatchewan, Canada, Manitou Beach is also
known for its mineral-rich waters. A resort spa there
includes indoor tubs and luxury services.
Several French spas, including the Avène Spa Center
in the south of France and the La Roche Posay spa
near Poitiers, about 185 miles from Paris, provide
therapy from thermal springs. These therapies often
combine bathing with drinking the water, sunlight and
other treatments.
Other sites with healing waters include cities along
the coast of Egypt’s Red Sea and Iceland’s famed
Blue Lagoon which has a clinic that specifically treats
psoriasis.
The Mavena center is one of several places psoriasis
patients can go for some form of balneotherapy—a
general term for therapy that involves mineral waters.
More study needed
Soap Lake in Central Washington state has been
a popular health destination since the early 1900s.
Its mineral-rich waters and mud are thought to be
curative for a number of skin diseases. Today, there
Which component of spa therapy works on psoriasis
hasn’t been adequately studied, says Dr. Alexa Kimball,
associate professor of dermatology at Harvard
Medical School.
“It’s difficult to interpret the efficacy of these treatments without a control group,” she says. “There are
many factors, including hygiene effects and emollients
potentially in the waters. It’s not clear whether even
the Dead Sea effect, which is well-documented, is due
to the water or more to the sunlight at that location. ”
Though the phenomenon requires more study, Dr.
Kimball says that spa therapies do work for some
people and should be substantially safe. She cautions
that UVB therapy of any kind should be monitored by
a physician.
For Richard Strezo, the
evidence is his own skin.
Over the course of 25
sessions, his psoriasis
improved significantly
and is now nearly gone. He
continues to get treatment two or
three times a month and uses the spa’s
topical products. Spa therapy, he says, has
made his life better.
Photo courtesy of Claire Wolf Smith
Stones photo © istockphoto.com/Ernesto Solla
Psoriasis walk leads to the Blue Lagoon
F
or Claire Wolf Smith, who’s had psoriasis for
18 years, the trip last April to Iceland’s famed
Blue Lagoon to treat her psoriasis was “a
wonderful, once-in-a-lifetime vacation that
no one in my family will ever forget.”
Claire, who lives in New York City, won the all-expensespaid trip by participating in the Psoriasis Foundation’s
National Psoriasis Walk for Awareness in New York in
April 2007. Claire was the first of six contestants to win a
trip to the Blue Lagoon over the past 18 months in
drawings held during Walk for Awareness events around
the country. (See www.psoriasis.org/walk for more
information about the contest and winners.) Contest
sponsors Icelandair and Blue Lagoon donate the flight,
lodging, meals and psoriasis treatment.
One year after winning the trip, Claire, her husband
Peter and their then-5-year-old son Nathan flew to
Claire, Nathan and Peter Wolf Smith
Reykjavik shortly after participating in the 2008 walk
in New York. They drove through what Claire describes
as a “wild and barren and desolate” landscape before
arriving at the ultramodern psoriasis clinic.
Water, silica mud provide relief
The Blue Lagoon is one of Iceland’s most popular tourist
destinations. The lagoon itself was formed in the 1970s
to harness its geothermal energy. Visitors soon discovered that bathing in the warm waters and applying the
lagoon’s silica mud to their skin helped relieve psoriasis.
3
national
psoriasis
Foundation
pSORiaSiS
aDVanCe
| november
+ December
2008
| REPRINTED
PERMISSIONplease call 866-4-MAVENA
National
Psoriasis
Foundation®
PSORIASIS
ADVANCE
| November
+ December
2008 | REPRINTED
WITH
PERMISSION
| For WITH
more information,
®
At the clinic, psoriasis
treatments begin with
washing with Blue
Lagoon products, then
soaking for two hours
a day in the lagoon and
applying the lagoon’s
silica mud to psoriatic
skin. Often, the treatment
is followed by ultraviolet
light therapy. Nurses
supervise the entire
process.
For Claire, whose psoriasis is relatively mild, the
soaking brought changes to tough spots that don’t
respond to the topicals she typically uses. “My
complexion looked unbelievably great and it lasted a few
weeks,” she says.
The clinic staff, she says, was welcoming and accommodating—even cooking kosher meals for Claire’s
husband. Outings to nearby cities and strolls through
the dramatic landscape rounded out an
“unbelievably nice”
experience.
- Amy Stork
Photos courtesy of the Blue Lagoon
4
national
psoriasis
Foundation
pSORiaSiS
aDVanCe
| november
+ December
2008
| REPRINTED
PERMISSIONplease call 866-4-MAVENA
National
Psoriasis
Foundation®
PSORIASIS
ADVANCE
| November
+ December
2008 | REPRINTED
WITH
PERMISSION
| For WITH
more information,
®