In The Press

Abundant Health featured in 7X7 Magazine

Monday, May 15, 2006

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In a cozy room at the Abundant Health, I lie on a heated massage table, wearing only a cotton gown and feeling a tad vulnerable. Shayla Mihaly, a certified colon hydrotherapist, assures me that linking a four-foot-long disposable plastic tube from my tail end to a water-pumping machine (dials and gauges and switches, oh my!) will be painless and, eventually, “refreshing.”
“The mechanics are simple—a gentle stream of water in, a gentle stream of water out,” says Mihaly, who’s been administering colonics since 1992, after a series of cleanses cured her own chronic allergies and cystic acne. She instructs me to take a deep breath as she fills my abdomen with water. I barely notice the water trickle in, but by the time she’s done, it feels like I have to rush to the bathroom. Before I can tear myself away from the table, my abdominal muscles take over and I “go” in the tube. We complete about 10 cycles in 75 minutes. Everything that’s released passes through a backlit glass cylinder. “It’s like Poo TV,” she jokes. Though she can tell I’ve been munching on carrots, the dime- and quarter-sized pieces of you-know-what disappoint me. “I’ve seen those tubes filled end-to-end with black gunk,” says Mihaly, who recommends three to five sessions for a good initial cleanse. At the end of the treatment, I feel like I’ve just done 500 situps— sore, yes, but gratified. “I don’t get it,” Mihaly sighs. “We brush daily to keep plaqueoff our teeth, but we don’t give our colons a second thought.”

$110; SHAYLA MIHALY,
ABUNDANT HEALTH WELLNESS CENTER, 1278 INDIANA ST., STE. 200, 415-573-6579. —Leilani Labong

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