Bathing in hot water

Well, I have heard that it tends to dry up your skin and speeds up the aging process. But I am like you. I love to see the steam rising and it just feels sooo good! Especially in the winter time after a long cold day! ; )

really wow i have never heard of that before. Well I guess I am going to be one dry old person real fast because I am not getting any younger. ha ha ha

Water and soap dry the skin so the solution to that is to use lotion. I've never heard anything about hot baths increasing the rate at which one ages.

No prob. hornswaggled, never hurts to ask :-) Actually, one of the circulatory disorders I have is Reynauds. Almost all of the women on my Mom's side of the family has that condition, but the Rheum says I have an extreme response more than most people. (Almost lost my toes last year because of it) With Reynauds, when I get cold all my blood vessels shrink, and if I get too cold I lose feeling, pain response, etc. While the warmth does help with the other circulation problem I have, with the Reynauds, they are worried that I will not feel how hot the water is getting and that I will get burned easier without realizing it. Lets put it this way, a couple weeks ago I checked the warmth of the water with my foot before getting in. I thought it felt chilly, so I added more hot and sat down...totally & literally burning my butt and making me jump right back out lol, but my feet could not register the true temperature. (So I'm back to checking the water with my wrist, like I would a baby bottle) I have since turned down the temp on the water heater itself so that can't happen again!

Yes, Raynauds is an autoimmune disorder. One of my Drs is a regular MD, plus has done studies in herbal therapies as well as homeopathy. With the multiple diagnosis's I have, not all alternative therapies go along with each other. I had cancer quite a few years ago, and the chemo and radiation, etc, brought other problems to cope with that are permanent. My rheum. Dr has me on different things that make the Raynauds much better to live with. I do use alternative and herbal therapies whenever I can. Most have worked extremely well, then there's times where the conventional meds work a lot better. I go with whichever works better for my situations. Since you are not familiar with Raynauds, I'm giving you a link in case you run across it in one of your patients. (I notice in my original post I spelled it wrong...oops!) http://www.raynauds.org/index.php