Patients are placed in a sauna heated to as high as 150 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature which is thought to mobilize the chemicals from deep stores within the body. The treatments are often administered in conjunction with chelation therapy and other forms of detoxification. For example, patients may spend a full day undergoing heat treatments, exercise sessions, a massage, and nutritional therapy counseling. Each treatment lasts from 15 to 40 minutes, and 3 or 4 may be given during the course of a day. Advocates say that an average of 20 eight-hour sessions are needed to completely clear the body of toxins.
Some environmental practitioners offer other, more controversial, types of therapy.
Claims for both drugs are considered largely unproven in the mainstream medical community. What Treatment Hopes to Accomplish Almost any type of illness or disorder, from hay fever to heart disease, can be treated with some form of environmental medicine, according to those who practice these controversial techniques. As with most medical treatments, however, there are no guarantees, and practitioners say that, in general, their overall goal is to help individuals cope with the daily hazards of their environment and, in the process, become healthier and, in many cases, disease-free individuals. In practice, these treatments are most commonly sought out to remedy food allergies, mold and pollen allergies, chemical sensitivities, and rheumatoid arthritis. Advocates say that once these disorders are treated, many other underlying diseases and illnesses, such as migraine headaches, asthma, and colitis may also improve.