I convalesced at the Mayr health clinic like Sarah Ferguson – for the first time in months, I felt euphoric
Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, has had, frankly, a terrible time of it. Last year she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a mastectomy. Now she is facing further treatment for melanoma skin cancer. So, what does a duchess do when her health collapses? She heads for a spa. And not just any spa. In a post on her Instagram account Sarah wrote that she was “incredibly grateful…to the MAYRLIFE clinic for taking gentle care of me in the past weeks, allowing me time for recuperation.”
While perhaps most famous for their detox and weight loss programmes, Mayr Austrian health retreats chafe at their fat-farm reputation. Instead, they see themselves as medical clinics which also offer a vast range of spa-type treatments in idyllic surroundings. The MayrLife website says, “Modern Mayr Medicine is the fusion of conventional medicine and complementary medicine, focusing on holistic health.” Mayr clinics attract celebrities and socialites such as Rebel Wilson, Elizabeth Hurley, Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell, as well as European royalty and captains of industry. They all sign up for the same ‘Mayr cure’ – a one-to-three-week programme of strict food deprivation, no booze, copious supplements, daily laxatives, gentle exercise, early nights and fresh air.
In 2019, I spent a week at VivaMayr, which curves around the shore of the crystal-clear Lake Wörthersee and is surrounded by pine forests. The Duchess opted for its sister establishment, MayrLife, by Lake Altaussee, which sits nestled amid Alpine mountains. As a breast cancer survivor myself, I understand why the Duchess feels so grateful for her stay.
Though my visit predated my cancer treatment, I’d recently had a cancer scare which turned out to be a terrifying false alarm. I was still recovering from back surgery I had undergone a couple of years previously in addition to a more recent abdominal surgery for endometriosis. I’d had to come off HRT and my sweats, flushes and insomnia had roared back, accompanied by anxiety and mood-swings. My face had broken out in a scarlet rash. Frankly, I felt broken. Like the Duchess, I needed somewhere to relax, restore and regain my health.
The Mayr programme is inspired by the teachings of Dr FX Mayr, an Austrian physician who believed that the gut was the seat of our ailments. He began offering fasting treatments in 1901, long before ‘fasting’ and ‘the gut microbiome’ became the health buzzwords we’re all familiar with.
There are numerous Mayr-inspired clinics in Austria, all offering a similar experience, but VivaMayr and MayrLife are probably the most upmarket and the most expensive. They are serene, spotlessly clean places that exude a kind of luxury nursing-home vibe that makes them ideal places to convalesce. Reassuringly, they are also run and staffed by conventionally trained doctors. MayrLife’s medical team is under the direction of Dr Maximillian Schubert, a former GP turned orthopaedic surgeon, who has had additional training in nutritional medicine and various complementary therapies.
Each guest has a personal doctor. Mine was Dr Eva-Maria Fischer, a slender, youthful, 39-year-old former GP. The programmes are, they say, individualised, but some treatments are common to everyone, even Duchesses. Each guest is tested for vitamin and mineral deficiencies (I was low in vitamin D), for how acidic their system is – a disputed concept - and their body’s balance between free radicals and antioxidants.
These tests tend to result in a prescription for a slew of supplements, which cost extra and appear on your table at mealtimes. Mayr calls supplementation ‘orthomolecular medicine’. Your metabolic rate and body composition is also tested. Everyone gets abdominal massages which are intended to improve digestion and gut health. Guests are also told to drink a concoction of Epsom Salts every morning, which results in urgent and explosive lavatory visits.
Mayr doctors also use a method called applied kinesiology, or ‘functional myodiagnostics’ (muscle-strength testing), to diagnose food intolerances.
In my case, Dr Fischer sprinkled fragments of dried food on my tongue and asked me to hold glass vials before pushing against my raised leg as I lay on a couch. Any muscle weakness was a sign that the food on my tongue or even in my hand was bad for me. I’m afraid I was – and am – deeply sceptical.
It’s unlikely that any NHS oncologist would recommend these treatments as part of cancer care. And, frankly, chemotherapy often had such unfortunate digestive side effects that the thought of punishing my poor gut any further feels traumatising. However, Mayr doctors, unlike overworked NHS GPs, have all the time in the world to listen to their patients’ concerns, which I found comforting and consoling. For anyone struggling with a cancer diagnosis, it’s helpful to know that Mayr also employs qualified psychotherapists, and though I never visited one, I heard positive comments from other guests.
Every morning, a detailed schedule for the day is pushed under the door of your room. You leave behind the demands and stresses of real life and instead become a white-robed zombie, your mind a blissful blank. The massages – from energetic pummelling to soothing reflexology – are world-class. But, for me, the exercise was life-changing. I was so scared I’d hurt myself I didn’t know how to start moving again. Personal trainer Gabriel took me through a personalised bone- and muscle-building routine of light weights, sit-ups and squats, all tailored to a frightened, unfit, middle-aged woman with a dodgy back.
I also had private yoga lessons in a garden studio that opened onto the lake. My instructor Mauricio spent most of the first session teaching me how to breathe, which made me realise I hadn’t taken a deep breath in months.
I was given water-based treatments including a ‘detox foot bath’. It’s pleasant, but I don’t believe that toxins were really pouring out of my feet into the murky water. I also had hyperthermia therapy to ‘detox’. I lay on a plastic hammock over an electric heater while covered in a foil blanket and was left to pour with sweat, emerging an hour later, wobbly and exhausted.
But many of my favourite things at Mayr– morning exercises on the deck over the lake, swimming in the turquoise lake waters or the spa pool, reading, afternoon Pilates or Nordic walking in the pine-scented mountains – were simple, joyful and free. There is also an indoor pool, sauna and steam-room complex, as well as a gym and an infrared cabin to aid muscle healing. There are bikes and paddle boards to use in summer and snowshoes for winter exploring.
Mayr food is generally pure and delicious but served in doll’s house portions. Tiny bowls of broth or sheep yoghurt, miniature salmon fillets with lemon, a few asparagus spears, always accompanied by a weeny dish of cold-pressed oils and a stale roll of spelt bread. Everyone is encouraged to chew each mouthful of bread 40 times to stimulate digestive enzymes.
Mayr doctors believe that fermented and raw foods such as fruit and salad are hard to digest in the evening, hence their mantra ‘no raw after four’. However, I am desperately hungry and after three days, I begged Dr Fischer to ‘prescribe’ more food. But on day six, the Mayr miracle occurred. I woke up from a deep sleep and for the first time in months, I felt completely euphoric.
In my last yoga lesson with Mauricio, as we performed sun salutations, he suggested I envisage marking a circle of light around myself and drawing it into my heart. I feel sure that this is exactly the kind of thing that the Duchess would adore.
After a week I lost 3lbs – which was disappointing – but my blood pressure fell from my usual 120/80 to 100/70, numbers I hadn’t seen for years.
At the time, I wrote, “staying in a beautiful place and being cared for by smiling people will make anyone feel better, but weeks later, I remain emotionally, physically and mentally stronger.”
To tell the truth, I always suspected that the Mayr effect would be ephemeral. But that wasn’t the case. Though life was disrupted by the pandemic, I fell madly in love with Pilates and yoga and still take classes almost every day. I have lost more weight and believe that when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021, my ‘prehab’ meant that I was far better able to tolerate treatment. Studies show that exercise in particular can reduce the side effects of chemotherapy and speed up recovery from surgery. I hope that the Duchess enjoys similar benefits when enduring treatment for melanoma.
I also believe that convalescence is an aspect of medicine that we all too often overlook. In Agatha Christie novels, people recovering from illness routinely head to Torquay hotels overlooking the sea, or embark on cruises to sit on the deck, a blanket over their knees. Yet today, on social media, even doctors mock the Princess of Wales’s planned recovery time from surgery, while others compete for the shortest hospital stay and the speediest return to ‘normal’ life.
Though few of us can easily spare the time or cash to head to a Mayr resort, isn’t it time we treated ourselves more kindly when faced with serious illnesses?
A week’s programme at MayrLife costs from £4139 pp sharing a room, and from £5,379.00 for single occupancy. This includes all meals and some treatments, such as health tests and three massages, but not flights or supplements. Most people incur bills for additional treatments and supplements on top of this. Healingholidays.com
