Fish pedicure in Thailand, a dangerous activity?

Fish pedicures have become a common activity in all tourist areas of Thailand, between restaurants and souvenir shops there are many massage parlours that offer to dip your feet in huge aquariums to allow small harmless fish to eat your dead skin.

What is fish pedicure

The fish pedicure consists of immersing your feet in an aquarium containing fish called garra rufa.

These small fish are only a few centimetres long, have no teeth and like to feed on dead skin.

This activity is normally harmless, the little fish are not piranhas, yet one woman had to have all her toes amputated and another lost her toenails and the cause in both cases, "would be" these fish pedicures.

A Thai masseuse, talking about these stories, told me that it was dangerous, that the water was dirty, that they couldn't disinfect it because it would kill the fish and that people with AIDS or other diseases could get foot injuries, contaminate the water and make people with foot injuries sick.

I don't know how many diseases can be transmitted by water, but it seems that we should be wary of this activity, even if there is no proof today that the two cases below are linked to this practice.

And these are two rare cases, every year a large number of tourists dip their feet in these aquariums without having any problems afterwards.

She loses her nails after a fish pedicure

A young American woman lost six of her toenails a few months after getting a fish pedicure.

Dr. Shari Lipner, a physician in the Department of Dermatology at Weill Cornell Medical School in New York, tells the medical journal JAMA Dermatology that she saw an American woman in her twenties whose six toenails were in poor condition.

The young woman was suffering from a condition known as onychomadesis, a nail infection characterised by spontaneous nail loss.

And it could be that the cause was the fish pedicure that the young woman had given herself a few months earlier.

"To my knowledge, this is the first case of onychomadesis caused by a fish pedicure," said Dr Shari Lipner.

"It is likely that the trauma caused by the multiple bites of the fish has led to the cessation of the production of the nail plate.

According to the dermatologist, this case illustrates the importance of skin and nail problems that can occur as a result of a fish pedicure.

The dermatologist points out that bacteria capable of causing disease have been isolated in the ponds and fish of 24 "fish pedicure" centres.

"In addition, there have been two cases of staphylococcus aureus infection and one case of mycobacterium infection in people who have had a fish pedicure," she says.

Fish pedicure centres have been banned in at least 10 of the 50 states in the US.

She has her toes amputated after a fish pedicure in Thailand

A 29-year-old Australian woman contracted a foot infection while getting a fish pedicure in Thailand.

Back home, the young woman had to have all her toes gradually amputated.

A 29-year-old Australian woman contracted a toe infection from an insect in the pool water.

She had to have all the toes of her right foot amputated, reports the British newspaper The Sun.

In 2008, Victoria Curthoys injured the big toe of her right foot with a piece of glass.

The wound became infected and the young woman had to have part of her toe amputated.

Four years later, she went to Thailand for a holiday.

Fish pedicures were very popular and she decided to try one at a spa, which, in her words, "looked very clean".

Back in Australia, the young woman began to suffer from high fevers.

"It took a year for the doctors to understand what infection I had.

By the time they identified it, the bone in my foot had been completely eaten away and I was constantly sick," she says.

Finally realising that Victoria had Schwelmenella disease, an infection caused by a bone-eating insect in Thailand that had infiltrated the Australian's surgical wounds, doctors amputated her remaining big toe in December 2012.

Unfortunately for the young woman, her terrible story does not end there.

Indeed, the total amputation of his big toe leads to new infections.

The doctors therefore had to amputate his second toe.

From then on, "I was healthy for two years," she says.

"I thought I was lucky to still have a foot and be able to carry on with my life as normal.

But I started to get sick again: every morning I was vomiting and had a constant fever, but the X-rays didn't show any sign of infection, so the doctors ended up telling me it was all in my head," she recalls.

"Until my GP asked for blood tests and then they realised that I actually had another bone infection and that I had too many white cells in my blood.

Eventually, from infection to infection, the doctors will amputate all his toes.

Health authorities warn against fish pedicures

Health authorities regularly warn against these fish pedicures from Asia, which are becoming increasingly popular in the West.

Last year, the High Council for Public Health (HCSP) issued an opinion warning against fish pedicures.

"It is a practice that has no medical indication," the experts wrote, recommending that "fish therapy" should no longer be used because it has, in their view, an unproven "medical therapeutic efficacy".

Moreover, in 2013, the French National Health Security Agency (Anses) had already assessed the risks of disease transmission in its care.

As a result, "cases of bacterial infections linked to aquarium and pedicure practices have been described," the agency noted, explaining that the tanks were never disinfected.

He concludes: "Certain users (diabetics, immuno-compromised, or those with skin lesions on their feet) constitute a sensitive population at greater risk of infection.

Report on fish pedicure

See also :

Thai massage in Thailand, the complete guide