Dr. Fish

While on Samui, me and the girls saw many big fish tanks inside the Big C or other places with hundreds or maybe even thousands of little fish inside, and to our surprise people were putting their feet into it!! We looked in amazement and it made us so curious to try it as well... but it took us 6 weeks before we tried it.

We waited till daddy came and the four of us reluctantly put our feet into the tank and let the little fish nibble on our feet. At first it tickled like crazy, but after a while you get used to it and it feels good, and the results are amazing, all the old and dead skin is gone and your feet look 10 years younger (Well, at least mine and Dirk's... the girls not so :-)

Dirk and Jasmine.



Me and Juliet, obviously there was more to nibble on my feet :-)



But after a while they started nibbling on the girls' feet as well.



Doctor fish is the name given to two species of fish: Garra rufa and Cyprinion macrostomus. Other nicknames include nibble fish, kangal fish, and doctorfishen; in non-medical contexts, Garra rufa is called the reddish log sucker. They live and breed in the outdoor pools of some Turkish spas, where they feed on the skin of patients with psoriasis. The fish are like combfishes in that they only consume the affected and dead areas of the skin, leaving the healthy skin to grow, with the outdoor location of the treatment bringing beneficial effects. The spas are not meant as a curative treatment option, only as a temporary alleviation of symptoms, and patients usually revisit the spas every few months. Some patients have experienced complete cure of psoriasis after repeated treatments, but due to the unpredictable nature of the disease, which is strongly influenced by endogenous factors, this may simply be regression towards the mean.

Another new experience we had to try!

Thailand; the land of fishes either on your plate or on your feet :-)

Mireille