Real Therapy - Not Just a Great Smell!
Written: Mar 24 '06
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: absolutely divine smell, incredibly effective relief from muscle pain, no artifical anything
Cons: none - except that sometimes they may be hard to find locally
The Bottom Line: Extremely effective for relieving muscle tension & pain, aromatherapy benefits, all-natural without any artificial additives. Or buy it for the smell alone!
|
|
|
| cathyb53's Full Review: Muscle Therapy Bath Abra Therapeutics |
I am so thrilled to have this chance to spread the word about this wonderful product! You know, bath salts aren't generally a big topic of conversation, even among us girls who use them. But Abra Muscle Therapy Bath is so much more than a heavenly-scented bath soak - it provides some serious therapy for sore, aching muscles.
I am a person with some serious health problems that affect the muscles throughout my body: Fibromyalgia, Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy (a severe chronic pain problem following an injury many years ago), Restless Legs Syndrome, sleep difficulties, and plain old arthritis, just to start out with. Plus the usual aches & pains that everybody feels,especially as we get a little older. I am a dedicated although physically impaired gardener, and in garden season spend many hours a day working outside digging and planting and hauling and weeding and stretching. I'm also an artist, and spend many days working in ways that make my body tired and sore. My body hurts almost all the time, sometimes so severely that I am in tears and other times just as general background noise. Muscle pain impairs my sleep, and when you don't sleep well you don't heal, and on & on it goes...
So as you can imagine, I've tried almost anything & everything to get some relief from the muscle pain that plagues me at all times. Apart from my medications, the single most effective item I have ever come across for muscle pain is Abra Muscle Therapy Bath. (And no, I don't work for the company...)It deserves a place in the repertoir of anyone who works with people who deal with a lot of muscle pain, and in the bathroom of anyone who has muscles! Athletes, gardeners, hikers, commuters, waitpersons, nurses, people who work out, weekend warriors who occasionally overdo it - anyone who sometimes just feels tired & a little battered-around by daily living should give these bath salts a try!
The first thing you will notice when you open the container is a wonderful fresh "green" smell - the smell of living herbs baking in the sun, or a favorite outdoor haven where the air is fragrant and healing. Leaves, crushed herbs, fresh air, gentle flowers: the incredibly reviving smell comes from the essential oils used to make the bath salts, which is also why they are so effective at relieving muscle soreness and tension. This kind of healing cannot be duplicated by artifically-manufactured "fragrances"; it comes from the living essence of nature's most healing plants, and the fake stuff just won't do the same job. This is the science and art and medicine of aromatherapy. You may like the way an artificially-fragranced product smells, you may even find the smell relaxing, but because the healing properties of the essential oils can't be simulated, the benefits cannot be the same.
OK - so we've got the container opened, and you can tell that the whole place is already starting to smell heavenly. Start running a nice warm bath, not too hot and certainly not too cool, and pour in some of the Abra bath salts - 1 or 2 generous lids-full is what I usually use, maybe 1/4 or 1/3 of a cup. The label will tell you, if you really want to measure. The salts usually need a little stirring around to get them to dissolve - you don't want to plunge into a crispy, itchy tub! Let it fill right up as deep as you can, and get in there & soak for at least 20 minutes. Scrunch right down to soak your shoulders & neck, let your arms rest down in the fragrant water, soak whatever is hurting. Just let the salts & the fragrance penetrate, and try to let everything else go for those minutes you're in there. Sometimes I read a book, sometimes I meditate, sometimes I do healing imagery - but usually, I just give in & relax & soak & breathe. I guarantee you that you'll feel better!
I forget all the scientific stuff about why the salts in a high-quality soak are good for you - I know they cleanse and soften skin, and help to relax muscles deep inside, but they do more than that. Something about balancing your body fluids across cell membranes, having to do with "tonicity", and pulling out "impurities" that irritate the cells to cause you pain. Maybe someone can look it up & give us the straight scoop. I used to have a better grip on the science of it, but it seems to have lost a little in the translation. Lactic acid, ionic diffusion across cell membranes, electrolytes moving around...Anyway, it's not just the combination of a good smell & warm water that gives the deep relief from pain & tension - it's all about the essential oils and the properties of the salts.
But whatever the reason, Abra Muscle Therapy Bath is a powerful tool for healing muscle tension, stress, and pain. I wish that every physician and physical therapist and coach and physical trainer had these in their bag of tricks, because there is some serious relief to be found in a jar of these bath salts! I've found that in gardening season, I can prevent a lot of muscle soreness & stiffness if I take a soak with this "therapy bath" as soon as I come in - just strip off the filthy clothes & fill up the tub, before any stiffness has had a chance to develop. Your body, your senses, and the people who have to live with you will thank you!
I sent a couple of jars of this to my hardworking daughter a couple of years ago - she was working at 3 different jobs, one of them as a waitress doing long shifts, another as a cashier standing on her feet, and another working with children all day. She had fallen down some stairs at work and landed on a concrete basement floor, and seriously bruised her arm & hip (we thought it was broken), and yet she still had to keep working at all these jobs just to stay afloat. Pain, stress, bruising, no time to rest & heal. Now, my kids tend to say "yeah, Mom" and roll their eyeballs at some of my nuttier remedies, but she was absolutely amazed at how much better she felt when she used this muscle soak. Now she swears by it too, and recommends it to her friends when they get overstressed or injured.
I also have found that a good warm soak in Abra salts before bed is the one and only thing that gives me any relief from Restless Leg Syndrome (a nasty disorder that gives you a creepy, crawly sensation in your legs - you feel like you have to keep moving your legs or get up & walk around, but even that doesn't relieve the feeling. It happens mostly at night, and is entirely disruptive of sleep - often for your partner as well, who has to put up with you constantly & restlessly moving your legs around at night). No other bath soak or salts I've tried has given me the relief that Abra Muscle Therapy Bath does.
When something works this well, you know that it is a high-quality product and an effective rememdy, not just anothern pretty-smelling bath product. Whether you're looking for a wonderfully fragrant bath salt, a natural and non-invasive treatment for some heavy-duty muscle distress, or just a nice relaxing way to spiff up your bathtime, Abra bath salths are the way to go. For me, they work better than Codeine!
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
cathyb53
|
 - Top 1000 |
|
Member: Cathy B.
Location: beautiful Ithaca NY
Reviews written: 133
Trusted by: 40 members
About Me:
"Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now"...Bob Dylan
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.