vaginal steam -- Mayan style and Korean style

I've been working with a Mayan Abdominal Massage practitioner, and she suggested that I do a vaginal steam each month.  Normally this is done right before your period and would be contraindicated if you are TTC, but she has her patients do it right after the end of the period but before ovulation, so it's ok to do it if you are TTC.

This page  descibes how to do it.  Also there is more information in the book Rainforest Home Remedies: The Maya Way To Heal Your Body and Replenish Your Soul.  Note in my case rather than using a chair, I put the bowl of herbs in  the toilet, works pretty well.  I used fresh rosemary from my garden. 

I haven't had time to write about my detox adventures in June, when I did some intensive detoxing activities, but one of them was to visit a Korean spa in the Chicago suburbs.  I noticed there a setup that looked like it had to be for something like vaginal steam, that they called a "wormwood sitz bath".  I couldn't find anything online about it, so I asked one of my Japanese friends who used to live in Korea, and who is interested in alternative medicine.

My friend told me "Wow, I'm surprised they have that in the U.S.  Yes it's very common in Korea. Due to the cultural pressure to bear a male heir, in Korean traditional medicine they have lots of ways to treat infertility, and this is one of them."  Then, she gave me a link to a wormwood steam spa in Tokyo!  So I just had to visit during my trip.  A spa specifically devoted to uterine cleansing!  And what's better, the website said specifically it's good for uterine fibroids.  (When I told my acupuncturist here she was so excited, as she said that wormwood has all sorts of beneficial properties.  And I found out that wormwood is the same thing as mugwort, which I have been drinking as an herbal infusion.)

One does two treatments at the wormwood spa.  First, you put your forearms and feet in a warm germanium bath, which according to them "makes you sweat as much as two hours of aerobics."  I've seen these germanium baths in Japan before but this was the first time I tried one, and wow it really did seem to work!  I felt detoxed.  I wonder why this hasn't caught on here in the U.S.

Then came the vaginal steam.  Wearing a cotton undergarment then a large cape over it, I sat down on a chair with a hole in the seat, over a steaming container of Korean herbs (wormwood and others -- I chose the "female complaints" blend) for 30 minutes.  Then a shower, change and go!  I really felt cleansed, and very warm inside!

I am going to order an at-home setup from Rakuten, the Japanese shopping site -- this one.  And got some extra bags of herbs here.