Korean Vaginal Steam Bath – Chai yok
Posted Under: Vaginal Steam Bath
Korean Vaginal Steam Bath gains popularity in Southern California spas
While there is little evidence to support it, the Korean vaginal steam treatment is believe to help fertility and general health.
The centuries old Korean remedy involves women sitting nude on an open seated stool above a boiling pot of pungent mugwort tea mixed with wormwood and a variety of other secret spices and herbs.
Chai-yok or vaginal steam baths, are believed to fight infections, reduce stress, clear hemorrhoids, regulate menstrual cycles and aid infertility, plus many other health benefits. Women in Korea regularly steam their vaginas after mensurating.
A little logic and some folk wisdom suggest that the carefully targeted steam may provide women with some physiological benefits. But there are no formal studies to document its effectiveness, and very few doctors in the nited States have ever heard of it.
Dr. Vicken Sahakian, the Los Angeles medical director of Pacific Fertility Center, said “…It sounds like voodoo medicine that sometimes works.”
Niki Han Schwarz claims Chai-yok worked for her. She found she had more energy and less body aches after only five steams. After spending three years attempting to conceive, she became pregnant eight months ago at the age of 45, all because of Chai-yok.
Vaginal steam baths are being introduce to Southern California women by Santa Monica spa, Tikkun Holistic. They offers a 30-minute Vagina Steam treatment for only $50. (The similar treatment is available for guys, to steam their pubic area.)
A 45-minute Vagina-Herbal Therapy at Daengki Spa in Koreatown, cost only $20 a squat! The steam includes a mixture of 14 secret herbs imported from Korea by the spa manager Jin Young. The spa’s website claims the treatment will “rid the body of toxins” and help women with bladder infections, menstrual cramps, kidney problems and fertility issues. Daengki Spa claims,
“It is a traditional Korean health remedy,”
Throughout America, chai-yok treatments are hard to find. They are generally available in a few alternative holistic health centers. In Manhattan, the flashy Juvenex Spa offers a 30-minute Gyno Spa Cure for $75. However, a complete do-it-yourself vagina steam set-up including the open-seated stool, herbs and the boiler can be purchased online at http://www.rakuten.com for $330.
The two main herbs in the steam bath mixture are wornmwood and mugwort. Mugwort (a.k.a. Artemisia vulgaris) has been used by Eastern medicine for hundreds of years to balance female hormones. According to herbalist and alternative medical journals it supposedly contains antifungal agents and natural antibiotics. It is also believed to stimulate hormone production to maintain uterine health, stimulate menstrual discharge and ease headaches, fatigue, nausea, and abdominal discomfort, among other claims.
Wormwood (a.k.a. Artemisia herba), an antimicrobial “cooling herb,” is also popular in Eastern medicine. It has been used in the past to induce uterine contractions and treat fevers, bladder infections, open sores, diarrhea, constipation, hepatitis, jaundice, eczema and parasitic infections. The leaves and young shoots are antiviral and antibacterial, and they also believed to relax the blood vessels and increase the discharge of bile.
Neither wormwood or mugwort have been subject to FDA drug testing. But Han Schwarz, owner of Tikkun Holistic, says she and her husband became comvinced of the herbs’ healing abilities after visiting South Korea and seeing the effectiveness of the treatment. They saw Korean women using the herbs to aid digestive disorders and immune system strength, to reduce headaches and pain from inflammatory conditions, to improve energy, to regulate the hormones and the menstrual cycle, and to remove toxins in the uterus.
Sherman Oaks-based writer Lanee Neil a customer of Tikkun Holistic said she prefers the Vagina Steaming to the harshness of a douche and thinks of it as a “facial” for her private area.
“It’s a simple, relaxing treatment,” says Neil, who hopes it will help her become pregnant. “You can imagine people doing this in the forest somewhere.”
Los Angeles Samra University of Oriental Medicine, professor, Tae-Cheong Choo, strongly endorses chai-yok treatment, especially for infertility and gynecological problems. He says whil he doesn’t have the time to prepare the formula here in the States, he used to administer it to his patients in Korea.
“Many infertility problems are related to coldness and stagnation,” Choo says. “The chai-yok treatment is effective for coldness or poor circulation in the lower part of the body because it increases the blood circulation, and blood supplies nutrition, so the more blood supply, the faster the healing process.”
Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Women’s Care of Beverly Hills Medical Group, believes the idea of steaming the pelvic area is “not insane.” The heat boosts circulation, and the increased blood flow brings more oxygen and “immune factors” to the region, she says.
However, she notes, it’s impossible to say whether the herbal steam does any good.
“Most of these kinds of treatments are not put through intensive clinical trials, so it becomes challenging to evaluate the actual impact they have,” she says. In addition, traditional practices like chai-yok “have been cut off from the larger system they grew out of, including factors of cultural and family life, diet, environment, etc. There’s a bigger picture that we’re really missing.”
Reader Comments
I had tried this treatment after I gave birth. it’s a necessity according to old ones for they say, this would help in curing vaginal stitches and helps removing blood cloth in the woman’s womb.
I don’t believe that sitting on a pot of steaming herbs and roots will be beneficial to VJJ. If it did any good, Korean women would rule the world. This is just plain crazy.