Vaginal Steaming, Hormones & Feminine Healing

 Welcome to your Body. Remembers pleasure. I'm your host, Rahi Chun. This podcast is devoted to sexual embodiment, intimacy, and the body's innate capacity to heal, feel, and remember pleasure. If something here resonates with you, you're welcome to explore more writings and resources@rahichun.com. And now let's begin.

 

In this episode, we explore the various applications and wide range of benefits of the ancient time-tested practice of vaginal steaming with Kelly Garza, founder of Steamy Chick, we discussed the turning points, which propelled steamy chick and to becoming the premier resource for all things related to vaginal steaming.

The roots of modern day western gynecological practices and its resistance towards longstanding effective practices like vaginal steaming and standards for healthy, holistic gynecological care that are still missing in the current medical model today. I'm really thrilled and happy to have invited Kelly Garza to the podcast.

I've known Kelly for a couple of years now, been so impressed and just in awe of her journey of navigating the steamy chick. Revolution. So just to introduce her first Kelly is the founder and director of Steamy chick steamy chick.com, which has quickly become the most comprehensive resource for data collection prescription assessment advice on, most everything related to peri steaming and vaginal steaming, as well as being a leading supplier of steam saunas and herbal blends.

So Kelly, great to have you here. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, Rahi. I'm always happy to be involved with anything you're doing. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I thought we could start Kelly, because a lot of our listeners are probably gonna be new to vaginal steaming, or may have heard of it, but not necessarily practiced it.

And I thought it would be fun to ask you to share like, the different turning points in the evolution of Steamy Chick and your, even at your your role as the leader of Steamy Chick and how that's I feel like you are such a, you've almost become a spokesperson for this holistic.

Healthy, safe self-care practice that's actually been around for centuries, but, a lot of modern day audiences don't really know that much about. So I'd love to know, like during your evolution from your very first steam to now, like what were the junctures that really propelled steamy chick in a new direction or in a deeper direction?

Like essentially what blew your mind along the journey? Wow. Okay. So nobody's ever asked me that before. Oh, very cool. I love it. You do have, yeah, you do have my mind. Turning, on that one. If I go back to the beginning. I heard about vaginal steaming like everybody else. And I learned about it from Marcia Lopez who's a Mayan abdominal womb healer.

And actually at first there was nothing. It was just like blank. Like it was like crickets. She said vaginal steaming. And it was just like crickets to be, why would I do that? I would never do that. That has nothing to do with me. And then my period was missing. And something, since you work with trauma, my period was missing because of a traumatic experience.

It had been gone for three months or so, and what I realized now is that anytime I have experienced trauma in my life, my period has gone missing. That's actually one of my body's responses to trauma. But at that time I didn't know it and I was just like, oh, my period's gone. Who cares? Just going through whatever I was going through.

And and so I actually. I realized that mentally I was struggling and emotionally I was struggling. I was having a hard time like moving forward. And it occurred to me that my hormones might be out of balance. And I realized of course that would make sense if my period is missing, that my hormones are outta balance.

But because I was struggling so much for the first time in my life, I figured I guess I need my period to come back so that my hormones can balance out. And so I went to sleep with that question. How do I get my period to come back? That's how I asked myself, right? And I woke up and I had that, it was like vaginal steaming.

I was like, I have to try that. And so I went to a Korean spa and I tried it. And my first experience with it, it was actually a little bit too hot and I wasn't in my comfort zone. And and so I did it. And so here's one of the interesting things about vaginal steaming is that you can do it. Not believing or not having any idea what it's gonna do.

And it actually still has an effect. It physiologically, has an effect on the body. It creates circulation, it creates heat, which is ultimately going to affect the womb. And so a couple hours after that steam session my period started just like that. And so my period started and my just like that.

And I, I felt a relief. I felt like I was able to return to my normal self after that. And so what happened at that point was that I saw that period looked healthier than any period I'd have had my entire life about 10 years earlier. I had asked my OB, GYN, they said, do you have any questions? I said I said, my period is brown.

I was like, is it supposed to be brown? And they said, is it always brown? And I was like, yeah, it's like consistently always brown. And they said, okay, then that's normal. Just contact us if something's different. And I was like, okay then. This period after steaming was red, it was a fresh, red, healthy color, and it was just vastly different.

And I could tell that it was healthier. So that was the moment. Yeah. I was like, this is better. Yeah. This is better than the consistently brown. It's better, it smelled better. It felt better. My, my body felt better. Yeah. And and so I decided at that point, I'm gonna, I'm gonna continue to do this.

And when you ask about what propelled me forward or why, honestly, one of the reasons why was because I didn't have health insurance. Uhhuh. I figured I have to do things that keep my body healthy. And if this is gonna give me a health, what looks to me like a healthier period, then I should do it.

Yeah. So it, there was a, honestly a financial consideration. Yeah. As to why I was gonna integrate this into my life. And, that's something that I'm really just starting to understand again now looking back, is how important the accessibility, is how even without much income, yes.

It's accessible. It's something that anybody can do to improve their health or to ensure that they have, that their menstrual health is on track, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's it can, it's a preventative health practice in many cultures. You're sharing so many great points right now, Kelly, I wanna underscore that, a lot of people will assume that, brown, that their menses being brown or even darker is there's nothing wrong with that or missing a period here. And there's nothing wrong with that, or menstrual cramps is just part of the experience and all of these things there's a reason for all of these things and they can all be remedied through this holistic practice that's been around for centuries and centuries in so many cultures around the world.

And you're Korean, right? Rahi, correct? Yes. Yeah. So Korea's fascinating because Korea is one of the places that has maintained vaginal steaming despite Yes. Despite the western ology. Yes. And in, in Korea, in fact, like steaming is more advanced than anywhere else as far as being able to research it and integrate it into like healthcare. But, but that was another like turning point. I, at the time, I couldn't say it at the time, I couldn't express it, but now I can. Brown is not normal. And now I couldn't say it because that's actually wrong. According to Western gynecology, that's that's wrong.

According to doctors. According to doctors, anything that's consistent is okay. Even if it's brown, even if the cycles are really long, even if the cycles are really short, anything that's consistent is okay. I see. Yeah. And so I didn't understand like how significant it was to actually just. Own, own that to just, to basically disregard that Yes.

And to decide, no, you know what, brown isn't Okay. Brown is a sign of old men. And it was through traditional Chinese medicine that I think that I was, I able to get that permission to speak more authoritatively about what is should, what is an a menstrual cycle imbalance versus what's a menstrual cycle?

What a balanced, healthy menstrual cycle looks like. Excuse me. So I found, I used to go to Yoan University to their acupuncture clinic. And so I right next to the acupuncture clinic, ah, was the bookstore that, the acupuncturist, in training, the students would, buy their books for their classes.

So I used to always sneak into the bookstore after my acupuncture appointment and just browse. And so I bought a book, called diagnosis in Chinese medicine. And it's not a book that I'm recommending people go out and purchase. It's really hard to read. Yeah. And in order to read it, I had to buy more books to be able to understand a lot of the terms.

But what was really cool was that in that book, there's a a chart that shows that talks about the different menstrual cycle like color, the different colors of the menses. Yes. And what that imbalance shows, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so that's what I started to look at my menstrual cycle.

As a monthly health checkup. Oh, okay. Do I have any brown in it because that's a sign of poor circulation, or was I able to get it all the way red, and then I started to look at what steaming practices and patterns created that healthy period, as well as what lifestyle factors created that healthy period.

And then also the period care and how, what I was drinking and eating and how that was affecting my period. So I started to use my period as a monthly checkup, and I started to read it using this, book that was based on, knowledge that was thousands and thousands of years old.

Thousands of, yeah, thousands of years old. I actually studied at Yoan for a little while and nice. So I know the bookstore. Yeah. I, it's like the memories are coming back of that bookstore, which is great. But, for listeners it's like the basic, like setup of vaginal steaming makes so much sense because it's using, steam is being used as the transporting mechanism to carry these healing herbal properties up the vaginal canal, up the cervix into the uterus to release any stagnation.

It could be old stagnant blood, it could be lokey if it's postpartum, it could be, anything. But at the very fundamental basics that soothing steam will relax the pelvic floor muscles. That steam will increase blood flow, which will increase sensation, which will increase libido.

It will downregulate the nervous system because the vagus nerve goes into the cervix. So at the very, like basic level, it's so good for so many reasons. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't really understand this like knee jerk reaction that it hasn't been. Okay. So in 2015 about four years after I started my journey with vaginal steaming a beautiful actress, Gwyneth Paltrow mentioned vaginal steaming on her right blog.

She had gone to a Korean spa, Tik spa in Santa Monica. Santa Monica, yeah. And so she mentioned it on her blog and recommended it. And so there was this reaction that vaginal steaming can't be healthy. It can't have any effect on the hormones. It can't have any positive benefit. If anything, it's gonna be harmful and I just don't get it.

For the same reason that you just explained, there's no way for it not to be. Useful. There's no way for it not to be beneficial. It's going to relax the muscles. Yeah. It's going to increase circulation. If we understand anything about the body, it's that warmth and circulation is good. Exactly.

Stagnation is bad. Just in general, every single injury anybody might have, no matter where it might be, you have to get circulation, you have to get warmth, in order to, for that part of the body to heal. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I think it's like it is a knee jerk reaction and the medical profession, it serves many wonderful purposes in many ways.

And the way the educational structure is, they're really limited to their boxes of. Approved procedures, and we know there's politics involved and money involved with, the medical association and all of that. And it's really based on not looking at the holistic health of a human being, but trying to stop like symptoms from proliferating.

I'm in some ways I'm not surprised that the medical establishment would respond to something they don't know and they've never researched, and most of them have probably never experienced. One of the things that you'll notice about the doctors in the articles that are advising against it, is that they don't know about it.

They say I don't know what that involves, but I recommend against it. I don't think that you should do it 'cause Douching is bad. Okay, steaming isn't douching. Number one. Number two. And so when I had a chance to have this conversation with conversation with Dr. Lorena, I said, why would a doctor advise against something that they don't know?

And she said, oh, it's very simple. They don't wanna get sued. Doctors, when they give an opinion, it's a medical opinion. And so if a doctor doesn't know about something, they will advise against it because they could be held legally responsible. If somebody. Tries that and is harmed. And that actually was a really important puzzle piece for me to understand because I'm just sitting here like, how could they be advising against something they don't know?

That's just, it seems ignorant to me. Yeah, I think the answer would be I don't know. I would need more information about that. And we have now all of these, when people. Unfortunately when people Google vaginal steam, they come up with all these articles of doctors that say, or articles that say, doctors say, don't do it.

So anyway, so she explained to me again, a doctor can only talk about what they learned in medical school. Exactly. So they're limited by the curriculum that they were presented with, and anything outside of that, they actually have to advise against it because of the legal framework that they're in. So that was also like a, another turning point was in 2015 when that when all of a sudden, vaginal steaming came into media. Exactly. And there were all of these articles against it. But it sounds like the turning point that that inspired or, propelled for you was data collection, like providing, doc documented evidence as to the benefits of it, which five years later is just. So critical and important because I feel like steamy chicks become this a amongst everything else, like a data collection hub.

I, until that point, I completely thought that I was not using my degree. I have a master's degree in international development. I have a strong social research background as well as statistical background. As well as research, just all of the all of this, this training that I had done in school, I was like, yeah, I'm not using I, as far as I was concerned, I wasn't using my degree at all.

But that turns it on. I was like, okay. Let's see if we can find any studies. Let's see if we can find any evidence. Okay. You know what, at that time I couldn't find any studies, even though I have now. In fact Korea is like the hub of studies on al steaming studies. Yeah. The problem is that a lot of them haven't been translated into English, but there are several studies.

It's really cool. So at the time I couldn't find any studies, so I said, fine, here are case studies. Here's 10 case studies about steaming and fibroids. Here's 10 case studies about steaming and bacterial vaginosis. If there isn't any scientific data if the medical establishment hasn't studied this, then fine, let's look at these case studies, and you can take. Case studies and create statistic statistics from those. And you can take case studies and you can learn from those. And so what, when I started to create my blog and started to create these studies and it actually culminated last year in, or was that Yeah, I believe it was last year.

I got together with some of the other steam practitioners and we created a pelvic steam testimonial database where we were like, okay, let's record all of our stories and all of our customer, our client's stories let's start to, collect them. And that database is so interesting because you just hear story after story and it's really, mind blowing how many different things that steaming that at least the people the participants contributing to this database, how many different areas of their life that steaming touches. I think I absolutely, I count it up, because people say what does steaming do? That's a really hard question to answer because it it's what doesn't it do? It improves so many different areas of people's lives, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's the database that's currently on the Steamy Check website. Which is so fantastic because, you, you can see the age of the steamer, you can see the issues that brought them to steaming.

You can see the protocol, the prescription, if you will, of how often, how many months they steamed and the resolution. And it is really. An incredible resource because anyone who have, who has, issues with fibroids or irregular periods, or menstrual cramps or trying to, or fertility issues, like you can go to that database and look at the experiences time and time again of people with the similar symptoms and how they've resolved it.

People's symptoms have gotten better, their periods are less heavy, their periods are less painful, they're able to enjoy sex again. Whereas it was, it's been painful, as they've been dealing with this issue and there's just so many, side effects. And what's really interesting about that, that has been another moment for me to say.

Menstrual pain isn't normal. Pain is not okay. It is not. Okay. That was another turning point for me, Rahi, because it, again, people say, and if, when you I have, so I just to, I like to get the books. So I have gynecology books too. I have like probably six textbooks that gynecologists themselves, that are used in medical school and it, they absolutely say that menstrual pain is normal.

Menstrual pain is normal. It's a, it's normal. There's not a problem. It's a normal part of menstruation and that is not okay. And so this is what we ha have women have been told. This is the messaging that we have received. Forever that menstrual pain, sorry, during our lifetimes, during our entire lifetimes, that menstrual pain is okay.

And I think this is this is a huge problem. Why? And who decided that it's okay for women to just suffer and just be in pain and you can't even, there's not even there's not even like a huge research study going on right now to end pain. There's research studies to end cancer.

There's research studies to figure out what's going on with what's the one where people forget their, where they forget dementia or Alzheimer's? Dementia. Alzheimer's. There's, there's research about eyes. There's research about all of these things. Yeah. All of these things that affect people's life.

Yeah. And especially things that affect. Older people's lives. Why isn't there a hu all of this research money going into solving the menstrual pain issue, women shouldn't be in pain. Yeah. But you can't solve an issue if you haven't decided that it's a problem. And so medically, according to Western medicine, menstrual pain isn't a problem.

Yeah, I think I, I heard in one of your podcasts you shared that the NIH devotes about 1% of their budget to women's health issues. 1%. And they are the leading research funder for, medical knowledge in this country. And yet, that's just incredible. I also interviewed Ellen Heed on the podcast, and her whole dissertation was about, result sex sexual pain.

Postpartum as a result of scar tissue. And she found that there's all this research being done on scar tissue remediation that is non obstetric, right? And yet a leading cause of sexual pain postpartum is scar tissue. Like all 10 of her sample subjects had that it sexual pain due to scar tissue, and yet there's no research being done on it.

To your point like if we're not asking the right questions, we're not the, we're not conducting research in the right areas. And if in gynecologic books, it says it's normal, then it's not gonna be looked at or taken seriously. And yet, Kelly from your work and from steamy chick's research, it sounds like 90 something percent of menstrual cramps.

Disappear from steaming. Precisely. I feel like the data collection that you've done, both intentionally and frankly I think the Facebook steamy chick forums. Are just like a gold mine, of data and research. It's like getting a PhD in vaginal steaming to just type in.

I'm serious. 'cause I mean there's the regular forum, but then there's the practitioner's forum and both of them you can type in anything. So listeners out there, you can go to, is it an open group? The Steamy Chick forum? Yes. On Facebook. Yeah. So on Facebook you can type in. Steamy chick vaginal steam forum.

Correct. Which is open. There's also one specifically for practitioners, which is also great. But you can type in any issue you wanna explore, that you wanna resolve holistically and naturally, whether it's fibroids and things like endometriosis, which is really tough. Even the medical community hasn't figured out how to really address it, but it's like mind blowing all the range of things.

And once again, all of these things like, brown menses color or menstrual cramps or, heavy bleeding or, shorter periods, these are not regular things you can resolve them with with vaginal steaming in a holistic and healthy way. Going back to the turning points, it sounds like the data collection was a huge one and it was in part done to defend yourself from all of these, the medical establishment like making accusations.

Yeah. And then that started getting me looking at the state of women and it just women's rights that got me understanding that there's some type of a woman's women's rights, aspect to what we're doing and just, and that there's also some type of empowerment and there's also some type of stance that you have to take.

I didn't, when I first steamed, I wasn't taking a stance. I wasn't taking my body back, but I did take my body back rather than me, now just, depending on the gynecologist telling me brown blood was normal. I was steaming monthly, right? And I had specifically learned to steam monthly from the Korea.

And spa owner told me in Korea we steam once a month after the period minimum, she said, and then we may steam more often if there are other issues. And so I was like, okay, once a month, and so I started doing it, but I didn't realize that was me taking my body into my own hands rather than handing it over to.

Men every time that I had a health issue. And when I say men it's fair to say that Western gynecology, even if you have a female gynecologist, is a profession that was founded, established, and is currently still dominated by men. The early founders of Western modern Gynecology were all men that were operating on, on women.

And they started off doing all of their experiments actually on enslaved women. And so all of the gynecological procedures that are done today, were founded. By white doctors that actually killed black women enslaved in order to be able to create these methods. So again, this is another, this was another turning point.

I didn't know that, I had no idea how significant it was for me as a black woman to not any longer, go to my gynecologist, go to a man to ask them if it was okay to steam my own body. But it definitely was triggering when I saw those articles that said, don't do it. You should not steam. And I'm thinking, why I've been doing this.

This has been healthy for me. And so I had to make a decision right there, honestly, to ignore that advice or not to follow that advice and to decide what I felt was better for my body. And that right there, Rahi is. It's a big thing. It is a big thing. It's a big thing. And I've continued to learn how significant it is more and more as the more that I learned history.

So what I found out was that and there's a really excellent book which I'll share with you as well. And it's basically how did women's medicine fall into men's hands? How was, how did gynecology become a male practice since the beginning of time? Midwives have been women, majority all women.

And in fact, women's health wasn't even considered part of medicine. And then all of a sudden, a couple hundred years ago, gynecology was founded. All of a sudden all women's issues, including postpartum, including obstetrics, including pregnancy, all of it, it has to do with we have these male, these men that are in charge of it who are using surgery and pharmaceuticals as the main methods of treatment.

It's interesting 'cause it seems like in a lot of other cultures all around the world where vaginal steaming is. Accepted as a, as a healthy practice, especially postpartum, especially to increase fertility, especially as a preventative measure. It's midwives really that kept it alive all over the world, wouldn't you say Kelly?

Yeah. Especially midwives in rural areas where there where there aren't any hospitals or clinics. And then there's there, and then there are a couple exceptions. Korea is one of the exceptions. It works so symbiotically with the the rise of even the modern western gynecological practices that are used in the country.

And I think it's such a good example because it shows there's no conflict between these. You can deliver your baby in a hospital with a doctor and in the maternity ward afterwards. Steaming can happen. Steaming can happen to help the mother recover. Steaming can be prescribed to help somebody if they have pain during sex or even to use steaming prior to, first sex after, after giving birth.

There's no reason why these can't be used together, right? Absolutely. And so Korea is such a really great example of that, and I'm not sure, I think it has something to do with the fact that. I dunno, there's something there. Yeah, I grew up there as a kid and the sauna people, my friends in LA love going to the Korean sauna, the women's sauna.

It's a really, it's a real, integral part of the culture, like going to the sauna, steaming so I think there's that piece. And also South Korea is largely rural and there is, like when you look at how the religion it's not dominated by like a Christianity or like a puritanical religion.

There's actually a fair amount of shamanism still being practiced in the rural areas. So I think all of those things combine in the culture to be open to, different forms of healing and care. What you're bringing up Kelly is it's true. Like why not, have, a, a western delivery in a modern hospital and then go and get steamed.

And that's exactly what your the fourth trimester postpartum study examined. I forget how long it was ago, two years ago, I believe. I started to work with so I was actually talking to Kimberly Johnson and she's the author of the fourth Trimester Study and a good friend of yours.

We actually know each other through Kimberly. Exactly. And so she, was having, this experience where, she talked about her difficulties postpartum. Yes. And she wrote this book, and now all of a sudden her inbox, her emails, her Instagram inboxes are, is flooded with all of these women who have all of these problems and how do we and who are looking for solutions they're not getting and these are people who have not that they, they're not willing to go to the doctor, but they haven't received adequate care or attention for the problems that they're having.

For example, postpartum sex, difficulty with postpartum sex due to scar tissue. Not something that, you know, that doctors are concerned about. It's not something that's even considered Exactly. During the postpartum checkup, for example. And so there are all of these issues that are going com unaddressed or Yeah.

That the care for them is inadequate. And so she's getting all of these, and so she, of course, she, there's certain things that she can do to help people, but there were too many people. And so I, I have the, I had the same problem. And so we were comparing this, just all of these women that need help and how to even get help to them.

And Kimberly mentioned, she said with steaming, steaming is low cost. And it's something that people can do in their own home. They can learn to do it themselves, and they can immediately receive, relief Yes. For so many different issues that they have so many different issues, right? Yeah.

Postpartum and especially because she's dealing with the scar tissue, the postpartum scar tissue. And this is another thing that's just astounding that, people are saying, oh, there's no way steam can help. If you've ever had, if you've ever delivered a baby and if anybody's ever had a tear and had stitches, how could steaming not be relieving?

How could it not help to keep that area clean so that it can heal better? It's just something that people really do see immediate benefit and relief from. And and so she said. She had heard me talk about how I wanted to do a study. I'm, I think in studies, I'm always just if we had a study that did this and this, like I just always have all these ideas for studies.

And she said when are you gonna do that study that you told me about? And I was like, not right now. I'm busy. So she was like, so I, my, the whole history of my company Rahi, is that I've been on back order, I've been on back order since the very beginning, and I'm still working to not be on back order.

Okay, I see. So I was like, not right now. I'm busy. And so she was like she's I just think that, she's can I help? What can I do so that we can get this study done? Because I think that it could really make a big difference. And so anyhow we did it, we did the fourth trimester vaginal steam study.

We figured out how to do it just as a grassroots study rather than going through through a university. And we just figured, okay what's the least amount of money and resources that we could get this done, basically ourselves. And so with this study, what we did was we wanted to look at.

We wanted to look at postpartum, a group of people who did steaming postpartum, and then a group of people who didn't steam postpartum and compare. And this was another turning point because as we were trying to figure out what should be included in this exam what I realized is that there's no definition for postpartum recovery.

What is postpartum recovery? What is it, if anybody's had a baby, what did your doctor talk to you about? What postpartum recovery is at that sex? What needs to happen between those six weeks before you're okay to go back to exercise, work and sex? What is supposed to happen at that time?

There's no definition for it. There's no list, for it. Yeah. And so what we had to do, I looked at, okay, what do midwives, what do midwives look for? When they're contending to somebody postpartum? And then what do doctors look for that six week checkup? What are the emergency things that people, that we're checking for right after somebody gives birth?

And and then beyond that, I was like, and what isn't addressed. Prolapse scar tissue. There's a lot of things that aren't addressed. Even broken bones aren't assessed after somebody gives birth. I myself, like I, I'm realizing I had a broken Cox bone after I gave birth to my first child.

Wow. And nobody ever asked me. So I just, if somebody asked me, I'd say, yeah, I can't sit down. I sat on my side for about two years after my f nobody checked. I see. There was no, there was no point that I was to be assessed to make sure that my Cox six bone didn't break when I gave birth to my 10 pound baby.

Naturally, there's no point in this whole process where that assessment happens, right? So during this, we actually got to assess what is postpartum recovery and what should be checked during this postpartum exam? And so we created our we were able to create what we felt is a. A comprehensive postpartum postpartum examination.

And that was really interesting to be able to create and look at those indicators of what we should be considering. And we considered even something like processing the birth, women emotionally processing the birth, right? Women are checked to make sure they don't have postpartum depression, but there's no point that women are able to emotionally process the biggest event of their life.

Yeah. Why do we only just check to see if she's depressed and not give her a tool to process it, or acknowledge, this rite of passage. So anyway, so we were able to create this and so Raquel, the midwife did these exams on day four and day eight and six weeks. And there were vast differences between the STEAM group and the non-team group.

So the STEAM group had better they had less, they had no issues with their stitches. By day eight, after five days of steaming, they had zero issues with their stitches, and then huge. Then also at the six week mark, which is huge. Just that alone is huge. They were able to urinate without burning sensation.

They didn't have pooling. They didn't have itching. And the weird thing is that everybody ended up with stitches in both groups. Now the non-team group, at six weeks we're still dealing with the issues and definitely at day eight we're still dealing with the issues. They hadn't even resolved their stitching issues and their scar tissue by the six week mark.

And so people say water could do the same. You could use the spray bottle and spray water on there. Water with salt or water with herbs, it's not gonna do the same thing as steaming. No. Steam is part of it's made up of water, but the steam combined with the heat and being turned into its gassiest form, steam is actually a gas.

It's able to penetrate the stitches and go deeper. It's able to get. And underneath in a way that just spraying warm water can't. And and so that was something that was big a big difference. Our steam group was not constipated. After steaming. They were, they started out constipated.

Everybody started out constipated by day eight. They were not constipated. And then actually we stopped steaming. None of them were constipated by day eight. And then the entire other group was by six weeks after they stopped steaming, actually the constipation had returned for some of them. So they were better off when they were steaming than when they had stopped steaming.

We saw that the blood pressure this was an interesting one 'cause I've never, considered people's blood pressure levels or anything like that, right? The STEAM group, their blood pressure was lower and this poor non steam group, their blood pressure was higher by day eight.

So when you look at blood pressure, we're one of the things that we can, one of the things that we can think about with blood pressure is stress, of course. So the STEAM group, their stress levels appear to be lower if we're looking at the blood pressure and Sure. So it was lower, all within a healthy range.

And then the poor non stem group, their blood pressure was going up and it stayed within a healthy range, but it their numbers were getting towards the, the point where it would go unhealthy. One of the leading postpartum. Causes of death is called eclampsia.

And the sign, the reason why they take the blood pressure is to monitor for eclampsia. One of the signs of preeclampsia or eclampsia is high blood pressure. So how it's very significant that the steam group's blood pressure was going down and staying within a healthy range, whereas the well sure.

Non steam groups blood pressure was going up, it was going up, it was going towards something that was unhealthy. Whereas the STEAM group had that a hundred percent, all of them were going towards safety. And doesn't that make sense though? Knowing what we do about the soothing effects of the steam but more specifically the downregulation of the nervous system with the effect of the vagus nerve being soothed.

It's gonna down, regulate the whole body, downregulate the whole nervous system of the body. And on day eight of, postpartum, I can only imagine all the stresses that you're surrounded with if you're not addressing a way of soothing the nervous system. And going back to what you shared Kelly about, the regulation of the bowel movement.

Of course, if the muscles are being relaxed with the steam, if there's more blood flow with the steam, yeah, sure. That's gonna make a lot of sense too. And so we don't, I don't know if you want me to go through all the indicators, but there were like eight we actually looked at more than eight different things, but there were eight areas where the steam group was way better off than the non-team group.

And it, they didn't bleed for as long. They started losing weight earlier and they lost more weight overall and so on. And so it's really worth taking a look at that. And, again, it's not hard to show, just because STEAM hasn't been studied by Western medicine doesn't mean that it's not valuable.

And if we did use scientific studies to evaluate it, there's no reason that we wouldn't end up, being able to see scientifically the benefits of it, because it's not, this isn't. Something that, steam touches you, it actually touches the body, it touches the physical body. Of course it's gonna have a physiological response.

There are entire cultures who do that as a regular practice, in the care of their new mothers. And there's a reason for that. There's a reason why it's been a practice for centuries. So I wanna point out to listeners that this study, the fourth trimester postpartum study, is available to look at for yourselves@steamychick.com.

The there's the abstract, there's the protocol, there's the different measuring protocols that they used and the results. And it's really worth taking a look. As well as the other testimonial database, which I think is just a phenomenal service to to show people who are curious or interested.

Like it's just over a hundred examples of, my gosh, like if someone went through the Facebook forum, there are thousands of case studies, like thousands from fibroids falling out to like the green mucus just dropping out to, just left and right. There's just it's incredible.

It's incredible. So you can even have somebody send you a private message of their fibroids that came out. I always tell people, I'm like, please don't post them on the forum 'cause I'm actually squeamish and I don't like to see it. Yeah. But so then they say, okay, private message me and I'll send you the photos.

And they send them around, yeah. No, I've seen those photos and it's amazing. Yeah, but it just, it makes so much sense that, not only the steam for all the reasons you mentioned, but combined with, we know how pot and healing herbs are, and you guys blend them.

People can blend them in such a way that it really addresses what needs to be ified or what needs to be cleansed. I wanna ask you, Kelly, before we wrap up, like what were some of, so staying on the theme of what blew your mind, so with the Forum and other, because now it's it's so many, you've certified so many practitioners.

It's like there's a a whole tribe of practitioners whose minds are being blown, just with this simple holistic, like time tested practice. What were some of the outlier stories that stayed with you or blew your mind? As, you're hearing about people steaming all over the world.

Oh wow. Honestly, Rahi, there are so many. There are so many. There are so many. And what I really love, so I've certified over 800 practitioners worldwide and what I realized is there is a certain amount and Rahi iss one of them, including me. What I realized is there's a certain amount of safety that is needed as I started to a cer as I started to become a supplier, selling vaginal steam herbs and saunas.

People always had all these questions and so people needed, a lot of how to advice as well as like the safety safety measures as well as how to get the right herbs. Based on the different type of menstrual cycle. And and so that's basically, I was spending all day long answering the same questions over and over again.

And so as I finally, started a certification program to certify more practitioners who could help guide people through this process and make sure that they're doing it safely and with the right herbs and so on. And what I think is really cool is seeing how each practitioner applies it within their own profession.

So cool. Nurses are becoming certified practitioners. We have massage therapists. We have acupuncturists who are now integrating it, right? And so it midwives doulas. And so it's so cool for me to see the way that it, like the way that steam works even within these different Yes.

Like professionals professions. Yeah. And like lately physical therapists and chiropractors have started using it. And at first, like I can teach the steam part, but I actually need the practitioners to explain to me how and why steaming is useful for chiropractor. How and why is it useful for physical therapy?

You as a I don't know how to say your title as a somatic sexual, yeah. Sure. Expert, you explain it in a way that I can't even fathom explaining it. Once you start talking about down the vagus nerve and downregulating it when you say it, I know it's true because I've steeped Yes.

But that's, since that's not my professional discipline, I can't speak in those terms. And so what's really cool to me to see is how it applies in all of these different professions. Yeah. Even to therapy. There's a therapist who's we work with people who are diagnosed with premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

She's and there's no way that we can't, that we shouldn't be using the steam to also address all of the black and brown mensies that these women end up having. Absolutely. So every different profession is showing all these different ways. Yeah. And so basically what I'm, what's what for me is so cool to see is how.

You really can't work with women if you're not working with their menstrual cycle. That's what I take away from it. You can't just help somebody overcome sexual trauma without looking at her menstrual cycle. How is she supposed to overcome sexual trauma? If she gets bacterial vaginosis every time she has sex, or if she has scar tissue that causes pain every time that she has sex.

How can you overcome pain and the trauma from pain when she still has pain? So it's just you can't really deal with women unless you're not dealing with their menstrual cycles. How do we not know that that the period is actually a womb cleanse? Nobody knows this. Nobody knows that the period is a womb cleanse, right?

And yet women are able to run, businesses and be a top level CEOs of any business in the world. And yet. We are not trained to learn that our own period that happens on a monthly basis is a womb cleanse. And that pain and cramps is a sign that the, that you're not getting a full cleanse.

It's just, anyways, I just, there's just something very foundational about menstrual health and women that I think the world has been ignored, gets overlooked for a very long time. Completely overlooked. Yeah. So many things you've touched on. I, the thing that really stands out to me, Kelly, is that the turning point you shared about recognizing that the wisdom you were hearing of your own body and seeing its what your bodys, what your body was telling you was more important than what the medical profession was telling you about your body and that sense of ownership and reclaiming, that your body's wisdom is its wisdom.

And I'm gonna listen to that. That's, that seemed to be a real turning point. I love what you share about how it's like the steam is I don't know, like a musical melody and all these different professions are creating different kind of jazz riffs out of that musical, these musical chords you're providing.

I know for me, like of course we want to regulate healthy menstruation, but as a somatic practitioner, it's really been profound as a practice to invite clients to start to get back in touch with their feeling sense of their pelvises, especially if they've been if they're recovering from trauma and have dissociated or cut off from their pelvises.

I had one client who, she was eight months postpartum, had a traumatic birth, and so disconnected from feeling her pelvis. Kelly, like within 30 seconds of feeling the soothing steam. She's, she felt her vulva for the first time since that her traumatic birth and just like tears coming down her face because she was finally getting in touch with the grief and sadness of her experience.

Like her baby was healthy and fine, but it was traumatic for her. And then the increase of blood flow and sensation should not be underestimated. It's incredible and that's what blows me away is it's so simple, but it can be so profound. I had a client who. Who had been circumcised as a child, in Northern Africa.

And so she was not feeling sensation. And we used castor oil just, covered her clitoral complex and her vulva with castor oil. And after one steam session sensation and pleasure returned. So there are all these different kind of, yeah, it's incredible. As you're saying, there's a whole variety of different ways to utilize this ancient and holistic practice beyond just regulating and supporting, the perfect period, four days fresh, red, without cramps.

And that's such a perfect example. Early on, I also had a client who was a FGM survivor circumcised. She was circumcised against her will as a child, and the way that she's using seing right now. Within that circle of of circumcised women that are now, working on getting back all of their function and all of their sensation is incredible.

I also have another I had a client who was a she was she's a sex traffick survivor. So she was held captive. She was kidnapped as a teenager and held captive for a year. And has the way that she's able to, and now she's a, she helps to empower other women. Cool to, who are.

Who have survivors escaped. Who are survivors Yeah. To, get their lives back. And steaming is absolutely a part of, what she's bringing to these women, and so it's just, it's so cool to see all of the different areas. But I think I think we, we really have to talk about men's health as well and how steaming can be useful for that.

Sure. Because you are the second male practitioner who was certified by me, and I have a third who's going through the program now. And I don't teach about men's health in my program. But one of the cool things is that in Korea, steaming isn't specifically a female practice.

It's used for both genders. Yeah. Yeah. Koreans just love the sauna. It is just like anything that could happen in a sauna, they're really into, let's do it. Whether it's, I know, soaking or massage or steaming, it's it's really, it's fascinating.

It's incredible. Earlier this year we lost one of our heroes in the black community, Chadwick the Bozeman Star of Chadwick. Yeah. Chadwick Bozeman, the star of black Panther. Black Panther. And I had known from, okay, so one of my, one of my close colleagues is Chris Gonzalez, and her mother is Korean.

Yes. And so she always goes in and finds the Korean stuff, the Korean data, the Korean information. Yeah. And so I had known from her a long from, a while ago that steaming is used in China and Korea for men's health as well. But since it's not something, since I, I've never worked with male clients, it's just not.

Something that I focused on. But when Chadwick died, I was just like, oh man, because he died from colon cancer. And colon cancer is one of the things that steaming can treat or esteeming is used to treat in in both Korea and China for men. And it really made me realize, I've got this, I've got this gang now of 800 steam practitioners around the world.

We all have men around us. We all have sons, dads, uncles, cousins, brothers, husbands, whatever. We need to start getting the steam to them as well. And so the areas that steam, and again, I'm not the expert in this. I am looking for somebody to step forward to be able to help to train the practitioners, along these levels.

And Chris Gonzalez is a great she's a great resource as well as a couple of other people. And then you, I always send people your direction if I can. But even you, I'm not sure if. Again, because I haven't trained anybody how to use steaming for men's health. But I do wanna mention that steaming can also be used for men's health.

It can be used for enlarged prostate, it can be used for co all the rectum and colon issues. Whether it's hemorrhoids, whether it's there's some type of prolapse whether there's fissures or some type of bleeding or whatever's going on there. As well as any type of genital cancer as well as erectile dysfunction and infertility issues. And I don't know what to do with that 'cause I don't actually know what blends to use and how to go from there. But I do know and what I hope that we see over this next year is a growth really in this area of using steam for these issues. Yeah, it's there's a massive problem.

I think prostate cancer is the number two killer for men, and yet the solution, there's just, it's waiting. And I agree. Again, the basics are gonna apply to any body. The increase in blood flow, the relaxation of pelvic floor muscles increase the blood flow.

It's gonna increase sensation, it's gonna increase libido. I've certainly and I know there's one I for, I, I'm, I can't recall her name now, but I know there's one colleague on the practitioner's form who makes a blend for men. Jole. Yes. And yeah, it's, so there's a lot of there's so much potential for it for sure.

And, I've experienced the benefits of that increased blood flow for sure. I started with the with the cleansing blend, and then someone suggested using the disinfectant blend. And so I steamed, at night I went to bed and, the wood the next morning was of a different quality and there was just a lot of wood on the block.

Let's just put it that way. Yeah it has that effect, right? We know it increases blood flow. And yet it, you're right, it's underutilized and it's not really, there's not a lot of attention place there. So that's a really great intention for the next year. And yeah. Yeah, it's of interest to me as well we should just stay in contact as far as what possibilities there are.

Yeah, it's natural Viagra. That's what I, that's what I hear about You're saying it's natural. It's yeah, absolutely absolutely. No, no side effects, but higher libido and, just more fun wood. So that's all good. I think that's one of the reasons why I, why I stay away from it is I'm like there's gonna be, there's gonna be some changes if men, used seeming.

But when I started to think about the application with like with older when men start to deal with these enlarged prostates, they can't urinate. And one thing we've seen with women postpartum yeah, it's painful to urinate. And as well with men with enlarged prostate is. Okay.

It's painful or it can be slow. Yeah. As soon as you introduce that steam, everything flows, the urination flows, it unblocks. And so the, just the stimulation, something happens there. And so it's just like, why should people not be able to urinate? They should just be able to Yeah.

Do a steam session and be able to like, empty out the bladder that way they don't have any of the complications that happen. What's really interesting is there's even a medical device that was developed in order to as a prostate surgery alternative. And they use a machine, but they machine.

It points at the enlarged prostate, and then it shoots steam at it and melts it out. I saw that. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that. Which makes so much sense to me. It makes so much sense and it speaks to the power of steam to penetrate the tissue so it can actually get to, the root of the issue.

So for listeners you can go to steamy chick.com. It is a comprehensive resource for all things steaming related. Kelly, thanks so much for taking time outta your day to share your your wisdom and your experiences with us. Anytime Rahi. Anytime.

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