Best Saunas for People with Chemical Sensitivities, MCS, or Allergies

If you struggle with multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS), allergies, or sensitivities to strong smells, finding the right sauna can be tough. In this video I explain what to look for when choosing a sauna, which brands tend to be the safest, and the critical air-out process that makes all the difference.

From heater layouts to wood types, I cover why some saunas work better for sensitive individuals and why options like Radiant Health and Heavenly Heat are often recommended. If you’re trying to enjoy the benefits of sauna without flare ups, this guide will help you avoid common mistakes and find the right fit.

Read the transcript >

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Transcript

All right, next Q&A is gonna be for people with MCS. I’m gonna read this to you because it’s quite involved. This is also for Sarah. I’m gonna post a link to this so that we don’t have to type some of this stuff out.

I’ll just talk to you. Sarah says, hi Matt, I really appreciate these tips. I’m disabled by severe MCS and a family member of mine is struggling with debilitating health symptoms after an amalgam filling removal went wrong. I had that too, by the way.

Exposing her to major amounts of vaporized mercury. I know you had a similar experience. Yes, I did. Infrared sauna sessions have been a game changers for us both, same for me, so glad to hear it.

Finding a sauna to purchase that we can tolerate has been quite the ride. Currently, I use a Sunlight and Impulse at a local float center. It had outgassed for one year with daily use when I first successfully used it. The float center just got a new sunlight in about six months ago, but I still can’t even be in the same room with it.

I was gonna ask you about that. Depending on how old it is, it could also be a different lumber type. If you figure out the year of the first one or maybe you can use your nose and tell me. If there’s a particular lumber type that you’re more or less sensitive to, let me know.

I was gonna go with the sauna ray due to its simplicity, no glues, but I’m grateful to find out from your research, infrared saunas, poor. Yeah, I love what the sauna ray guys stand for. I would love to have more options for North American made saunas. Just the heater layout is terrible.

Like, I have a sauna ray. I’ve owned one for years. I don’t make reviews on them because I like what the guys stand for. At the same time, I don’t get a good sweat in there.

That’s the premise of using the sauna in the first place. If you’re gonna get the benefits, you need to be sweating well, and the heater layout just doesn’t allow for that. I don’t know how people say that they have a sauna ray and they love it. I don’t know if they have not tried some other saunas with better sidewall and frontal infrared coverage, but the heater layout and the sauna ray, just having it in the corners, most of your body is like, especially in the front, most of their layouts, the heater.

are from the knees down. So your organs are literally not getting any far infrared at all. That’s one of the major benefits from infrared sauna use that no one talks about. But it’s kind of like an unwritten rule that hey, a lot of this is being caused by, you know, that’s wild to me.

Question for you is, do any of these companies allow full returns if the sauna doesn’t work out? I know you recommend Radio and Health for people to MCS, but I don’t have a garage to air a sauna out. Would risk it being stolen if I kept it in my porch to air out.

Thank you for all you do. Carefully, Sarah. So yeah, so I don’t know any companies specifically that offer a 100% risk-free return after enough timeframe that you would need for the sauna to air out. And so if you’re seeing this on YouTube, not just for Sarah, but if you’re seeing this on YouTube and you have a friend or family member that you’re trying to help with multiple chemical sensitivities, what’s happening, if this isn’t personally for you, is what’s happening is your body is, not your body, I’m sorry, the person that you’re trying to help, their body is experiencing an autoimmune issue, right?

And a lot of times, sensitivity is to certain things and it’s different for some people than others. Sometimes it could be something as simple as like a perfume, a dish soap, absolutely no scented candles and stuff burning in the house that filters throughout. But I mean, it could be down to like simple, simple stuff, like if you use the wrong dish detergent or something, like in the dishwasher, like literally all kinds of sensitivities.

It could be sensitivities on the skin, it could be sensitivities to the nose, it could be an allergy, something that’s airborne. And so while these folks are dealing with the multiple chemical sensitivity condition, which does actually get better when they’re able to improve their health markers that are causing this in the first place.

Generally, they’re working with a functional medicine practitioner and in relation to, I don’t wanna get way out of context here, but in relation to sauna, a lot of times, two things.

things can happen. One, they order a sauna because they’re trying to help themselves and a lot of times, you know, they’re having a flare-up that’s causing this condition. Like she mentioned, if you have an acute exposure to heavy metals or mercury or something like that, the body can’t deal with that.

So having heavy metal poisoning is actually saving your life because it’s depositing things in fat cells and instead of sending an absorbent amount of that compound to the organs that it can’t process at once, right, because you would have organ failure. Worse complications. So there’s like a gratefulness of the intelligence of what’s happening here, but your life is in shambles in the meantime because you can’t understand it, you don’t know how to measure it.

It’s kind of like EMF stuff, but in a sense it’s what’s happening within, right? And so what happens is people are ordering saunas knowing that it helps them, just like Sarah. You know, she’s been renting sessions just like I did, having great results. However, when you have a sensitivity to all these things, you can get a sauna that has a really strong wood smell, which is usually why I recommend something like a Radiant Health.

You could try a Heavenly Heat, also is very mild. Things that you would want to stay away from are like a cedar sauna. Some of the older saunas like Health Mate, some of the Clear Lights, some of the Sun Lightens, definitely stay away from the Sun Stream. What else we had flare-ups with?

You know, you don’t tend to get as many flare-ups with something like the sauna ray or the Heavenly Heat. It’s just the sauna ray, like you asked about, the heater layout is just not going to help you as much. And there’s two things happening here. One, in the manufacturing plant, where they source the wood from, and also during the assembly process, there can be things, airborne things, dust, all kinds of stuff that gets into the sauna while they’re building it.

And once you unbox that and bring it into your house, it kind of gets…

start up, plus if you’re buying from a company that has a really strong lumber smell, and there’s no rhyme or reason to this. You can take two companies that make a basswood or a hemlock or even a cedar or a eucalyptus or a poplar or this or that, and you can put them next to each other, and sometimes some of those brands smell really, really strong.

I’m not chemically sensitive at all, but it’s strong to where I don’t wanna use it or I’m uncomfortable because you want a mild-smelling sauna anyway, because once you close the door, you’re gonna be in there for a while, and that builds and builds and builds with the heat.

And so, not only can you have a sauna that has a super strong lumber, and so my recommendations are for me using them and not just once. You know, multiple different models, different locations. I know that the company generally has a super mild, something that reacts well. We’ve had a lot of MCS patients buy these things.

So number one would be Heavenly Heat well, Radiant Health first and Heavenly Heat. The other thing is not doing the air out process. So I’m hesitating because not every company packages their sauna exactly the same way. So some of them are wrapped in plastic.

Some of them are wrapped in styrofoam. All of them are usually in cardboard boxes on crates. All of them have generally been sitting in a box truck for delivery or a warehouse waiting for delivery. So they have like a dust and stuff on the outside of the cardboard box.

So number one thing, and Sarah already knows this because I can tell the way she asked the question. Number one thing for anyone else who sees this, you do not bring those things inside. I don’t care if you have to lay the stupid thing out on the grass, on the yard or driveway, if you’re in an apartment, put it in a parking spot.

Have the guy with the pallet jack leave it right there. Right? You take all the sauna pieces out. You leave all the packaging, the plastic, the this, the that.

If you’re in an apartment, I know.

Sarah, you’re saying that you’re worried that someone might steal it. I don’t have another option for you because generally, as you know, what we’re trying to do is get the components out of the packaging because they could have been sitting in there for months in the warehouse waiting for someone to buy this or have it delivered or whatever.

And so you’ve got styrofoam, you’ve got a plastic bag, you’ve got the cardboard, you’ve got the dust, you’ve got all this stuff that’s kind of like sealed together. We wanna give the sauna parts a chance to lean them up against the wall, have all that stuff removed from them, air out completely, and also let the wood air out from the sauna pieces themselves.

And so you take a lightly damp cloth and you just wipe everything down, vacuum it off. If you have a garage, obviously you leave this outside for up to two weeks. To me, that’s extreme, but for somebody who can have a flare up from doing the wrong thing, do what you need to do, 100%.

Because if you do this right and this can work for you, the benefit that you’re gonna get is like 100X, right? And so number one thing that I would say, uh-oh, I lost it, where’d it go? For Sarah, I don’t know of any company that will give you a no risk.

And by no risk, I mean, usually there’s either a restocking fee or you have to pay the return shipping or there’s always some component of, unless there’s something wrong with it or it was damaged in shipping or this and that. It’s a very expensive item to ship around.

It’s expensive to store, all this stuff. You know the drill. I don’t know if, I would call and verify first, right? Because no one is just gonna let you keep it for an unknown number of weeks for it to air out.

And we don’t know exactly how long that is, but that is what you need to do, 100%. You need to let it air out, then you bring it inside. If possible, put it together in the garage. I know for Sarah, but if you’re another person that sees this, you put it together in the.

and cycle it, set it max temp, max time, wipe it down, vacuum it out, let it run for an hour, cut off. Next day, do the same thing. Next day, do the same thing. Next day, do the same thing.

So what you’re doing is you’re doing like a light little burn off, and you’re also letting the wood and stuff air out, not in the closed environment where you’re gonna be using it. And so you can remove yourself from that part of the scenario. And you can replicate what Sarah is saying.

She had a great result with an old sauna at the spa that she was renting sessions with. But if you didn’t catch it when they replaced it with a new one. Now, it doesn’t necessarily mean Sarah that that thing, the old one has aired out and that’s why you’re tolerating it.

It could be changing components. If you’re talking about a sunlight and impulse specifically, they have mesh grills in front of all the heaters, right? So that’s not the best thing to play nice with you. I would kind of, you know, I don’t know if I would necessarily buy one of those in your case.

And if it’s, you’re talking about five or six years ago for the old one that you bought, I’m sorry, that you used. This is a lot of things to keep track of here. Versus the new one, they could have changed the wood type. They could be different models.

There could be different, you know, types of materials or fabrics or things in the new one versus the old one. So you’d really wanna pay attention to all of those things. And my advice would be, reach out to the sauna companies that you’re really thinking about purchasing from and just tell them what the deal is.

Hey, I’m having a really hard time. I’m doing the best I can. I don’t wanna buy your product and then, you know, try to send it back. I’m not trying to screw you guys over, but here’s my situation.

I’m really trying hard to, you know, get myself this or that. And if that doesn’t work, you could try something from a big box store. I’m trying to think of what I would say. There’s not one that’s gonna be super low EMF and have no, actually, you might be able to try this one here.

It was the one from the Black Friday thing.

Pro. The review’s not out on that. I’m hesitant to mention it. It is, I think it’s like $2,000 or less but I think you might be able to send it back depending on where you buy it from.

It’s not going to be as good as a $5,000 one. It’s not going to have, you know, the heaters in the bench. It’s not going to be super low EMF. It’s not going to be perfect but I was thinking if a big box store had it, kind of like you can get the Dynamic from Costco, this works better than the Dynamic.

I’m trying to think of a big box store that would take it back for sure, no questions asked. Well, let me know. I don’t want this video to go on forever but I wanted to do a video response so that if you or someone you know is suffering from multiple chemical sensitivities and you’re like Sarah and you’ve tried to get a sauna or rented sauna sessions and had some success and you’re trying to replicate that at your house or you have a family member that’s trying to do it for you or help you, this is like kind of the same scenario that we go through with everyone that’s in this position so hopefully this is shedding a little bit of light on the right way to go about it.

A lot of times people think that, you know, sauna, they can’t tolerate it or it’s not right for them because they buy one, get it home, take it right out of the package, turn it on, don’t clean it, don’t do any of the procedures that I’ve outlined in some of the other videos, and then they have flare-ups and they’re like, oh, I can’t do that.

Well, you’re missing out on the long-term benefits that you’ll get over the next six to 12 months if you just take it slow, do what you need to do for your situation and get that sucker working for you. So I’ll see you in the comments. If you’re in the Facebook group, I’ll post a link to this in there.

Let me know what you think. And Sarah, send me a private message and if you need me to reach out to one of these companies for you or with you, I’d be happy to do that. We’ll see you in the next video.