Take a plunge in the waters of the hot springs in Turkey’s Sivas Province and you’ll be providing a feast for the Garra rufa obtusa and Cyprinion macrostomus macrostomus – with your skin. Both types of fish, also known as the doctor fish, enjoy pecking and licking away at dead and diseased skin. But don’t be alarmed when they come nibbling at you. These little flesh eaters actually help improve the skin by removing those little bits of raised dead and diseased skin (plaque) that result from skin conditions like psoriasis. They don’t have any teeth, so bathers have described the experience as ticklish rather than painful. And because they live in warm waters where many things don’t survive, they’d end up eating each other if they couldn’t eat you.

The doctor fish have become a hot commodity for spas around the world, where clients spend a pretty penny to take advantage of their voracious appetite.

Toronto Cosmetic Clinic doesn’t have any of these little fishies, but we do offer laser based treatments that can help with skin problems.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 17th, 2008 at 9:35 am and is filed under Make Up and Beauty. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.