Pasma

Pasma is a folk illness in Filipino culture said to be brought about by too much exposure to coldness and water, which is believed to facilitate an unhealthy coldness entering the body; the condition is attributed to an interaction between init, or heat, and lamig, or cold, in the body's muscles. Though not described in medical textbooks or recognized by contemporary medical science, the University of the Philippines anthropologist Michael Tan has said the symptoms are very real to Filipinos who experience them, particularly after a long hard day of work followed by an abrupt cold shower, and pasma has even been cited as a cause of death, as in the related folk illness bangungot.