1 of 5
Photos by Frank Couch.
Lee Bruno and Loretta Wendel are co-owners of Spiro Salt Room & Massage Therapy.
2 of 5
Photos courtesy of Frank Couch.
Spiro Salt Room is a new halotherapy and massage business located inside Mountain Brook Mall.
3 of 5
4 of 5
5 of 5
All Lee John Bruno was really looking for was some help with his sinus problems, but there was definitely a curiosity factor involved as well.
“We were in Williamsburg, Virginia, and they had a salt cave up there,” he said. “That was my first experience with a salt room. My wife, daughter and I went to check it out, because they said it could help your sinuses and allergies.”
A salt room is just what it sounds like, he said. “There’s salt on the floor, and there are salt-covered walls, and there are microparticles of salt being circulated in the air.”
During halotherapy — another name for dry salt aerosol therapy — a person relaxes for 45 to 50 minutes while breathing in dry air laced with the tiny salt pieces.
And after one session in the salt cave in Williamsburg, Bruno could already breathe better.
“Salt rooms have been used in Europe for a long time,” he said. “There have been some studies done in Russia that found out that salt miners didn’t have skin problems.”
Halotherapy is new in the U.S., and its proponents say the salt is an anti-inflammatory agent with health benefits for asthma, allergies, bronchitis and other respiratory issues. So far, there have been few medical studies about the treatment, and results are inconclusive.
“Salt rooms are fairly new in the U.S., but the concept has been around for a long, long time. It’s a secret that doesn’t need to be a secret,” Bruno said.
So to try to get the word out — and spread the benefits — Bruno came back to Birmingham and partnered with massage therapist Loretta Wendel to open Spiro Salt Room & Massage Therapy at 2816 Culver Road in Mountain Brook Mall.
Spiro means “breathe” in Greek, and the salt room has a Greek theme and is decorated to make you feel like you’re at the beach while you lounge on zero-gravity chairs.
It’s a process that relaxes you and simultaneously scrubs your entire respiratory system, Bruno said.
“More than 70 percent of people in Alabama have sinus and allergy issues,” Wendel said.
Since they opened, Bruno said one thing that surprised them was that a large number of mothers of children with cystic fibrosis began coming to Spiro Salt Room. Some had been driving to Atlanta each week for the therapy.
That’s happened for a variety of people with a variety of needs and stories. And because of that popularity, he and Wendel already are working to expand in other cities in Alabama.
“We just want to let people know there’s a safe, natural way to let people help their sinus problems,” Bruno said.
For more information, visit spirotherapy.com or call 445-0448.
