The Whole Truth | Big machines in wellness centres, a new draw for the health-conscious

The pedometer is vintage. Wellness technology have moved far beyond strapping a minimalist counting machine to your arm or strategic stretches on Pilates machines. While exercise of any kind or yoga and dedicated, consistent breath-work have no suitable replacement, big machines in wellness centres have abundant promise.

It’s been a few years since new-age, technology-driven wellness centres have cropped up in Indian metros with a dizzying variety of options — for those with ailments and without. For the affluent, regenerating cells and finding that elusive glow means taking in high-pressure oxygen inside a submarine-like chamber or reclining on a lounge and taking in vitamin cocktails through IV (the Myers cocktail, for example, which, some would say, is a foolproof hangover cure) or taking the P-shot or the G-shot for a libido reboot.

The Renew Medical Centre at Lokhandwala, Mumbai, is the second outpost of the brand started by Bengaluru-based diabetologist Dr Syed Naveed, who gave up conventional medical practice to start the first centre in his home city in 2009. He imported machines for HBOT therapy or hyperbaric oxygen therapy — a treatment that enhances the body’s natural healing process through inhalation of 100 percent oxygen in a pressurised chamber, where the atmospheric pressure of oxygen is controlled for optimal benefit. Renew offers high-dose vitamin C for cancer patients, enhanced external counterpulsation (EECP) for coronary artery disease, colon hydrotherapy to cleanse the gut, shots of plasma enhanced with natural growth factors into the penis and vagina and shockwave therapy to reboot libido or shots of glutathione or vitamin cocktails just to achieve that ever-elusive glow. All these therapies could cost anywhere between Rs 2,000 to Rs 50,000 depending on the package or treatment. The pre-requisite is extensive blood works to understand your body’s terrain, which a team of doctors and nurses monitor. “After the pandemic is when I am seeing many people come in for these treatments as complimentary therapies or even alternatives to conventional treatments,” says Dr Naveed. He says he suddenly has many walk-ins besides being referred by specialists in hospitals both in the Bengaluru centre, the centres at Hyderabad and Cochin and the recently opened centre in Mumbai. The day I visited Renew, there were heart patients on stretchers, people with diabetic feet, those looking for accelerated healing of surgical injuries and sports injuries, and some looking perfectly healthy, in pursuit of anti-ageing and improved overall health.

The HBOT machine is not for the claustrophobic. I tried two of them, a smaller cylindrical chamber at Renew and a larger, heavier, more high-tech version at Purnima Hospital at Borivali (East) facilitated by Baromedic Healthcare, which resembles a real-life submarine in heft and weight. At both centres, I was asked to get a 2D echo test done to ensure my heart can handle enough pressure generated in the chamber. They checked my vitals like oxygen saturation levels and blood pressure before strapping me on to a seat inside the machine. After the first few minutes, as pressured oxygen streams in to the chamber via an air compressor and a filter, the ears felt it — just how you feel when an aeroplane starts its descent for landing. After a 90-minute session which required me to do nothing but sit or lie down, I came out feeling no different from when I went in. But over the next couple of days, my energy levels were higher, and people around me did spot a glow.