Leeches are making a comeback. They are being used in reconstructive surgery, as a cure for acne and as a beauty treatment.
Any woman who has held her breath during a Brazilian or grimaced as the Botox needle pierces her skin will know that sometimes you have to suffer in the pursuit of beauty. I’ve had my fair share of painful therapies over the past few decades but this is the first time I’ve been so absurdly nervous about an impending beauty treatment. I’m about to undergo leech therapy, which is making a comeback as a method of detoxifying the body and treating conditions such as cellulite and varicose veins. Demi Moore, who says that she uses leech therapy as an anti-ageing treatment, is its most famous proponent. The treatment is said to be moderately painful, but it’s the yuck factor that I’m worried about. I have to gather my courage as I ring the doorbell of a clinic in Brooklyn, New York.
Andrew Plucinski is a hirudotherapist, a holistic practitioner who works with leeches. He has a fresh batch waiting for me, newly arrived this morning on an overnight flight from a leech farm in Oregon. Oh, my goodness, they are gross. A tangle of dark-brown worm-like creatures, swimming in a jar half-filled with water. Some are so energetic that they make a run for it, slithering out of the container and undulating at alarming speed across the table.
“C’mon girls, come back,” Plucinski says, scooping up the wriggling runaways — leeches are hermaphrodites but he refers to them as female because he thinks that they’re pretty. Leeches have been used for centuries, peaking in the mid-1800s to help to treat a wide variety of ailments, from headaches to gout. Today doctors around the world use medicinal leeches (Hirudo medicinalis) in plastic and reconstructive surgery. They are also being used to relieve the symptoms of osteoarthritis.
Leeching is already a popular holistic treatment in Asia and there is a small but growing number of hirudotherapists working in Britain. Wojciech Ganski and Edyta Ganksa, a Polish couple who have lived in the UK for seven years, set up their company, Hirudo-Med, in East Grinstead, West Sussex, only three months ago and have a website: www.leeches.uk.com.
They carry out home visits and say that they have used leeches to treat ailments including migraines, haemorrhoids, varicose veins, sciatica and alopecia. “We have many ladies being treated for spider veins on their legs,” Ganski says. “Patients are a bit scared before the treatment but afterwards they are happy because they see that it is entirely natural and that there are no drugs involved and no sideeffects.” The couple also offer non-surgical “face-lifting” treatment and claim that the lipids in leech saliva leave the skin radiant and can tackle acne.
Plucinski became interested in these small invertebrates when a Polish healer used them to heal his knee after a skiing accident. After his property business collapsed in the recession, the 55-year-old decided to retrain as a hirudotherapist in his home country. The training took “three weeks”, he says, breezily, “but was intensive”.
I tell Plucinski that I haven’t been sleeping well and he suggests putting a couple of leeches behind my ears to cleanse the large veins in my head, which will allow the blood to flow through more easily. I hear myself reluctantly agreeing. I sit in a chair as he puts on rubber gloves and swabs my skin with alcohol. He tells me that the leeches are eight months old and haven’t been fed for about six months so will be ravenously hungry. He pulls out the first one from the jar and I break out in a cold sweat. I don’t feel anything at first and then —ow! — it’s painful. These leeches have three separate jaws, with 70 to 90 teeth apiece, and they are scissoring into my flesh. It’s like being stabbed with tiny needles. I’m terrified that the leech is going to fall down my blouse, but it has attached itself securely as it slurps away.
Plucinski says that for the first 15 to 20 minutes the leech will shoot its own saliva, which is filled with enzymes that thin, clean and rejuvenate the blood, into my body. After that it will feed on blood and lymphatic fluid, a colourless liquid containing white blood cells that circulates in the lymph system, carrying waste matter away from body tissue to the veins. The second leech is applied to my other ear and, again, there’s a fleeting sensation of sharp little teeth gnawing at skin. The photographer, who is taking close-ups, remarks in awe: “Man, they’re huge.” I shriek, loudly.
There is more to come. Patients can have a “natural face-lift”, whereby leech juice is applied to the face. Plucinski takes the leech from behind my right ear and returns with a small plastic cup filled with a watery red liquid. This is the stuff that is going to be smeared on my face. He tells me that he has put a few drops of salt on the leech to make it regurgitate its stomach contents: my own blood and lymph fluids mixed in with leech saliva. The liquid feels tight, as if I have a face-pack on. I’m relieved when I can wash it off with cold water after 15 minutes.
As a final treatment, some leeches are placed on my knee, which is swollen from an old tennis injury. Again, I feel teeny teeth crunching through flesh, but it’s less painful here. After about 40 minutes they’re full. Plucinski taps them lightly. They ripple as though they’re water balloons and fall off. When I touch them they are, remarkably, are ice cold. “That shows that your lymphatic system is sluggish,” he says. Then he drops them into a jar of alcohol, where they die instantly.
The price of leech therapy varies with each practitioner and depends on how many are used in each treatment, but it is not cheap. You will be charged $40 to $70 (£25 to £45) per leech and each treatment uses four to eight leeches.
Many doctors scoff at the idea of using leeches for holistic reasons and say that there is no medical or scientific evidence that leeches detoxify the body. Hirudologists such as Plucinski, however, are convinced that they work, saying that improved blood circulation can bring many benefits. “There are 150km of veins in the body, and leeches can clean them and make them stronger and more flexible,” Plucinski claims.
My tiny bites bleed for about 14 hours and ooze a sticky substance that Plucinski says is toxins. My husband is horrified. I sleep like a log, but is that because the leeches did their work or because I’m emotionally wrung out? The next day the bite marks start to itch. I’m feeling remorse for the poor leeches, sent to their deaths because of me.
It may be my imagination, but my skin is glowing and it does feel soft. A week later I have had no ill effects other than some intriguing scars, which I have been told will diminish in a few weeks. My knee seems less tender, but after an initial rosy glow I’ve noticed no long-term improvement in my complexion. It’s back to ordinary — and less gruesome — spa facials for me.
