If you’ve ever applied an ice pack to any part of your body to try to reduce swelling, you have performed a type of cryotherapy. The basic principle behind cryotherapy is to cool down either parts of the body or the entire body to achieve some kind of therapeutic response. Sometimes the response is only to try to help alleviate pain, but it can be used for things such as removing warts and addressing other skin issues, or to help induce healing in some fashion. It’s cold therapy.

For minor procedures, using ice packs and an icing solution are safe ways to address certain issues. For instance, ice works well in removing warts because it’s a natural way of numbing that area of the body and it’s easy to go directly to a specific location. Then removing the wart is painless and quick.

It gets more complicated when a person gets into a tub and has their entire body subjected to the cooling process. For long-term physical therapy, as in 15 minutes, a lot of ice will be poured into the water that the patient is in. The body will get used to it within a couple of minutes and will heat up, the patient will be relatively comfortable as the ice melts around them. When something else is used, such as liquid nitrogen, the patient’s body has to be covered in certain areas to protect them from frostbite, but generally they will only wear a bathing suit. The temperature is lowered to -166°F, and in this case the patient can only stay in a cryogenic chamber for a few minutes. Supposedly this releases endorphins into the body which immediately relieves pain.

Cryotherapy can also be used as an anesthetic when other methods aren’t preferable. It is sometime used to help in the treatment of tumors in the body as it relates to kidneys, bones, lungs, and the breasts. In addition, it is sometimes used during certain cancer surgeries.

You always need to make sure that a qualified physician or technologist is using cryotherapy on you, because it doesn’t take much to injure the body with too much cold for too long.

See Also:
Cryotherapy, Cold Therapy – www.jointhealing.com
Cryotherapy: Dermatology – www.medscape.com

Image Credit: www.FromYourDoctor.com, which is a patient education service from Vivacare Inc.

This informational article should not be considered as advice on health, health related issues or health related procedures.