Ozone Sauna Therapy NYC - Dr. Alicia Armitstead

"Ozone therapy breaks up lactic acid, increases cellular respiration in muscles, and speeds up the recovery of damaged tissue. As a result, ozone therapy enhances the body's oxygen utilization, enabling us to fight infections, slow cellular aging, increase fertility, and enhance natural detoxification processes."

-Dr. Alicia Armitstead

Ozone Sauna Therapies at the Healing Arts NYC Health and Wellness Center in Manhattan NY 10017

What is Ozone?

Ozone is a colorless gas comprising three atoms of oxygen (O3). The oxygen in the air is O2, so when ozone gets absorbed into the body, the extra oxygen atom easily breaks off and bonds to where it is needed in the body. Your body can benefit in many ways if it has extra oxygen. For example, to help detoxify, the extra oxygen molecule bonds with sulfur compounds like glutathione. In this way, ozone helps take the burden off the liver by binding to toxic substances, making them neutral in the body and no longer a toxin. 

What is Ozone Sauna Therapy?

Ozone sauna therapy is the combination of steam sauna and ozone gas. During an ozone sauna session, you sit in a sauna pod that covers you from the neck down and induces sweating using steam from distilled water. This sweating opens up pores to allow the ozone gas to be absorbed by the skin. As you sit in the sauna pod, ozone gas is introduced simultaneously. 

So when you combine the wet and warm skin with the ozone gas, the extra oxygen that goes in has great anti-inflammatory and immune-boosting effects. Ozone sauna therapy is believed to be a powerful treatment that may be comparable to IV ozone administrations, just without the needle. 

Ozone therapy breaks up lactic acid, increases cellular respiration in muscles, and speeds up the recovery of damaged tissue. As a result, ozone therapy enhances the body's oxygen utilization, enabling us to fight infections, slow cellular aging, increase fertility, and enhance natural detoxification processes. It also improves blood circulation, improves vitamin and mineral absorption, fights inflammation, and kills mold, parasites, candida, viruses, and bacteria. Our Ozone pod supports anyone wanting to boost the immune system, detoxify, get pregnant, reduce bacterial and fungal load, clear the skin, or reduce the effects of aging.

Because ozone enters the body and pulls toxins out of fat cells, it increases the body's metabolism and can assist with weight loss. Treatment is usually between 20 and 30 minutes, depending on your health. But we also offer 10-minute sessions to help prevent too much detox, and if you want to try it and don't have enough time. 

You will sit naked on a towel inside the pod. You could also have a towel wrapped around you, but the idea is that the more skin exposed to the steamy ozone air, the better. No jewelry, water bottles, or foreign objects should be taken into the pod with you due to the wet heat. 

You can expect to feel relaxed, refreshed, and energized from the treatment. We provide towels to dry off. Remember to drink plenty of water and breathe deeply for the rest of the day!

Ozone Sauna Therapy Uses

Ozone saunas are used for many conditions because of their potent anti-inflammatory, detox, and immune-boosting effects. The Healing Arts Ozone sauna therapy can be used for:

• Autoimmune disorders
• Allergies
• Anti-aging
• Asthma
• Bacterial infections
• Candida
• Chronic viral diseases like EBV, Hepatitis B, and C
• Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• Common cold
• Diabetes
• Detoxification
• Eczema
• Fibromyalgia
• Foggy Brain, as a complementary treatment to reduce side-effects of chemotherapy or Long Covid

• Fungal infections
• Influenza
• Injuries
• Joint Pain
• Lupus
• Lyme Disease
• Mold 
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Parasites
• Poor Circulation
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Skin ulcers (diabetic, infectious, and necrotic)
• Scleroderma
• Weight loss
• And more

Combining Therapies for Better Results

Because of the intensity of the detox, it is a good idea to get muscle tested for how long your ozone sauna session should be. We have 10, 20, or 30-minute intervals. The longer the session, the more oxygen can enter the body, but we don't want to detox too fast. Signs of detoxing too fast from the ozone include a rash or fatigue. 

The body goes into fatigue because all of the body's energy goes to detoxing, not toward the daily output. If this happens, be kind to yourself for the day, and it usually wears off with a good night's sleep. 

For general detoxification and well-being, a schedule of four 30-minute sessions once every other week is tested often. Up to 12 sessions or more are required for chronic medical disorders, but everyone is different, and we want to personalize your care. 

For those who want to do a steam sauna and not ozone, it is possible to turn the ozone off and get the health benefits of just the hot sauna.

Possible Minor Side Effects

Ozone saunas are one of the safest treatments in the alternative health field: They’re non-invasive and relaxing. In addition, the reported side effects are usually minor and transient and can be easily remedied using the sauna less. 

A rash can occur because the ozone has brought up too many toxins, and the body is trying to eliminate toxins through the skin as you sweat. It can be itchy, and it usually looks like small red pimples. It can occur on the abdomen, chest or back, or limbs. It is usually the itchiest the night of the ozone sauna therapy and dissipates entirely in 3-4 days without any long-standing damage to the skin. It’s a good thing because you know you detoxed a lot, but there is no reason to overwhelm the body, so if you get a rash, I suggest the next time you do it, either a reduction of the ozone concentration or frequency of administration.

Therapy Limitations

You are not allowed to do the ozone sauna if you have high blood pressure, are worried about a stroke, have had an organ transplant, or have hyperthyroidism. Also, if you are pregnant, please do not partake in sauna ozone therapy. Instead, consider it for your post-pregnancy protocol.

My Ozone Therapy Lifestyle Change

Who doesn't love to sweat out toxins for better health? Dry saunas and steam rooms have been used for centuries to help people feel better, not just by the relaxation but by the heat, allowing one to sweat out toxins and boost the immune system. When doing this type of therapy, one must be careful not to detox too fast and cause a detox reaction or dehydration. 

To help prevent dehydration, that's one reason why I love using steam versus dry heat. But even after spending time in a steam room, you want to drink at least 64 ounces of water that same day to help flush out toxins that were brought up and out of the cells during the steam room time. 

Besides a steam room, hot showers always do the trick for me, especially if I have tight muscles or feel like I need an immune boost. I was lucky enough to have a steam room in my gym before COVID hit, so now I settle for hot showers and the benefits of steamed water in a pot over the stove with a towel over my head for any head or sinus pressure. But now I can get the benefits of a steam room with ozone at Healing Arts (I have to come to work early or leave later to have time for treatment). 

Ozone Water

I love ozone! Having had asthma as a child putting ozone into the air saves me when I go to my mom's dusty cabin in the Adirondacks. I also make ozonated water to drink 16 ounces daily, wash my fruits and vegetables to remove dirt and bugs, and wash my face. 

Our Ozo-Pod makes that all possible, creating ozonated water at home. Washing my face with the ozonated water is amazing! I couldn't believe it the first time I used it. My skin got tighter. More oxygen to the skin is only beneficial. So when I learned about ozone sauna therapy, I couldn't wait to try it! If I had amazing results with just washing my face, imagine if I did my whole body! Not only is it excellent for the skin, but the ozone sauna is also therapeutic for the body. 

As the ozone gets absorbed through the skin to the lymphatic and blood streams, the extra oxygen gives the body the extra boost it needs to fight free radicals, fight infection, detox heavy metals, absorb nutrients, reduce inflammation, have better digestion, and more! So I knew I had to have one in the office so others could experience it and understand why I love ozone.

Additional References

• Ozone Sauna Therapy - Healing Arts NYC Podcast
• Ozone Therapy: A Clinical Review - National Library of Medicine