Health Tips – The Well Nest with Candy Nicholas

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]s a self professed health and wellness junkie, I am always in pursuit of the next weird and wonderful natural health treatment available, whether I’m in St. Lucia or abroad. I’m willing to try most things at least once… I’m adventurous like that! So I thought I’d share a few health, wellness and beauty treatments that you probably didn’t know were available here on the island.

Energy healing: In my opinion, this is not a new health modality in St. Lucia. We’ve all been exposed to it in one way or another. It’s not unusual to hear of people going to the village healer to ‘rub’ or ‘panse.’ I’ve heard of many healings that have occurred. Some of you who are  more inclined to dealing with what is ‘proven by science’, and not just anecdotal evidence may ask for proof. However, in my mind, even if it’s a placebo effect, what matters is that it worked.

Lately I’ve been enjoying a treatment called a Marma Replenishing Energy Treatment. It actually influenced the development of acupuncture. Marma therapy is an ancient Indian practice which focuses on the manipulation of subtle energy or prana in the body for the purposes of supporting the healing process. Marma therapy is based on the utilization of 107 points in the body which are considered to be access points to body, mind, and consciousness. Some of the benefits include calming and settling the mind, relieving pain, better, more restful sleep, toxin release and basically a restoration of overall health. Call Marise Skeete at 484-7777 for more information or to schedule your treatments.

PRP: In keeping with my affinity for exploring the weird and the wonderful, let’s talk about PRP. It’s a bloody process but highly effective. Basically, The term PRP applies to a wide variety of similar, but quite different preparations made from blood platelets. Platelets are the little packets of growth factors and other natural healing molecules that help clot your blood. So if you were to get a cut, they would both stop the blood flow and also release healing growth factors to help get the local cells on course to heal the skin. PRP is created by centrifuging the whole blood drawn from an arm vein (or anywhere else) and concentrating the platelets in the serum. PRP substance is injected into the affected tissue (joints, ligaments or tendons, for example), which leads to local inflammation and a “wound healing cascade” resulting in: deposition of new collagen, plus healing initiated and controlled by bioactive proteins found in platelets, plasma and white blood cells. PRP substance is very different than an ordinary blood sample because it contains much higher concentrations of platelets and cell ratios (for example “normal blood” has about 6 percent platelets while PRP has about 94 percent). Platelets contain a number of proteins, cytokines and other bioactive factors that initiate and regulate basic aspects of natural wound healing, including those of the skin, connective tissue, etc. So not only does this help with pain but it also works remarkably to give you younger looking skin and can help in restoring balding or thinning hair. Call Illuminese at the Rodney Bay Medical Center on 455-2737 or go to illuminesse.com for more insight.

Colonic Hydration: I’m a big advocate for colonic hydration. Even those of us who try to eat well most of the time sometimes eat processed foods, foods in the wrong combination or because of various lifestyle practices, our digestive systems are compromised. There are some people walking around with pounds of fecal matter stuck to the walls of their colons. Colonic irrigation can improve you bowel function and mood, help you lose weight, brighten your skin and complexion, rehydrate your body, increase your energy, boost your immune system and help alkaline your body. If you want to try it out, call Louise King at 717-1779 or Julian Toussaint at 716-5922.

Look out for next week’s column for more treatments and therapies available here!