Cryotherapy is cold treatment. Cryotherapy can be local or general - in the cryochamber. Cold treatment reduces pain, swelling, and eliminates inflammation. It helps to regain the joy of life and rejuvenate. All thanks to the fact that the blood starts to circulate 4 times faster than usual.

Cryotherapyis a treatment with very low temperatures.Local cryotherapyuses a device with a nozzle, which looks like a vacuum cleaner tube - it cools selected joints, skin fragments or muscles.General cryotherapyconsists in cooling the whole body in special cryogenic chambers. Both methods have been used successfully for many years.

A referral for cryotherapy can be made by your primary care physician. He should describe the symptoms and include the current tests (X-ray, ECG, blood count, ESR, urine test, blood glucose level).

Cryotherapy - what is it?

Cryotherapy uses the body's natural reaction to cold. These are defensive behaviors that restore the balance of the functioning of the entire body. First, there is a sudden narrowing of the blood vessels in the tissues, because this is how the body defends itself against heat loss. The blood flows a bit slower, and the cooled tissues are less well supplied with oxygen and nutrients. The metabolism slows down. It only takes a moment. The blood vessels then dilate and become hyperemic. The body begins to defend itself.

The surrounding cold acts on the endocrine and immune systems. Endorphin, a very powerful natural painkiller, is released more quickly than at normal temperature. Anti-inflammatory substances circulate more actively. Muscle tension is reduced. They become more flexible, more agile and able to make more effort. During the stay in the chamber, the blood flows mainly to places where the temperature is always constant, i.e. to the skull, chest, abdominal cavity, and in men also to the scrotum. The rest of the body, mainly the arms and legs, just gets cold. The temperature of hands and feet can drop by as much as 16 degrees Celsius.

Local cryotherapy

Local cryotherapy is also used. Special devices that generate steam from liquid nitrogen have applicators that resemble a vacuum cleaner tube. Depending on thenozzles of variable diameter are put on top of it. Gas at a temperature of minus 150 degrees C is released from the nozzle. Before it is placed on the skin, it is heated to minus 100-90 degrees C.

  • How does local cryotherapy work?

The rehabilitator directs the nozzle outlet at a degenerated joint, bruised muscle or burned skin. He holds it 10-15 cm from the skin and sweeps nitrogen gas over the affected area. After a few seconds, you feel a chill, but it's not unpleasant or painful. When a slight frosting becomes visible on the skin, then the freezing stops. In the first phase of the procedure, there is a rapid contraction of tissues and blood vessels. After several dozen minutes, blood vessels dilate, well-oxygenated blood circulates faster, so the tissues gain new energy, which will allow them to cleanse themselves of toxic metabolic residues.

  • Indications for local cryotherapy

Local cryotherapy heals injuries, severe bruises, eliminates local pain, facilitates traditional rehabilitation. When used in the case of extensive burns, it significantly reduces thermal shock and soothes burn pain, which is particularly severe. It also helps in rheumatic and degenerative diseases. It improves individual joints, eliminates contractures and muscle tension. It supports the treatment of the sciatic nerve and also eliminates neuralgia. Increasingly, it is also used to treat obesity, and in beauty salons to combat cellulite.

  • Who cannot benefit from local cryotherapy?

People with peripheral circulatory insufficiency, impaired nutritional processes (trophies) of the skin and subcutaneous tissue and frostbites cannot use local cryotherapy.

General cryotherapy, i.e. cryochamber

On the day of entering the cryochamber, you must not drink alcohol or use other stimulants, because they may disrupt the normal functioning of the body. The doctor will examine you again immediately before the procedure. He will ask, among others o a history of illnesses, auscultation of the heart and lungs, examining the abdomen, measuring pressure, checking whether you have enlarged lymph nodes. It will also make sure that you are not afraid of cold and closed, small rooms. If you successfully pass the tests and sign a consent to enter the cryotherapy chamber, your adventure with the great frost will begin. You also need to put on a bathing suit or special cotton shorts and a T-shirt. Warm gloves will protect hands, and legs - knee socks and sports shoes. Cover your nose and mouth with a mask. You can hide your ears under a woolen headband or a hat.

  • What it looks likecryotherapy treatment in a cryochamber?

The treatment consists of three stages: preparation, cryogenics and cryorehabilitation. The first step is to enter the room where the temperature is about minus 50-60 degrees C. You walk in place for 30 seconds to let your body get used to the cold. Then you go to the primary chamber, where it is minus 120-160 degrees C. In the cryogenic chamber, and also 20 minutes after leaving it, do not touch the skin because painful wounds may form. You also need to remember to breathe properly. This information is important primarily for smokers, because their lungs are less efficient. A short breath in and exhale twice as long. If a large portion of icy air enters the lungs, the so-called respiratory depression, which can cause significant shortness of breath. It is not dangerous and will pass after a while. There are 2.5-4 minutes in the chamber. You do not feel cold in it, just a slight pinching of the hands and feet. The skin turns a little red.

According to an expertIwonna Grzywanowska-Łaniewska, MD, PhD, specialist in cardiology

Why can't people with heart disease benefit from cryotherapy in the chamber?

Entering the cryochamber, in which the temperature is very low, would be a huge shock for the coronary arteries. It's like jumping out of a warm bed in a very cold weather. The coronary arteries will then contract sharply and there will be severe pain in the chest. The peripheral circulation will also change. Much more blood than usual will flow to the heart, which can cause a heart attack, arrhythmia, or a sharp rise in blood pressure. These are life-threatening situations.

Do you know that

The oldest mention of cold treatment was recorded in a papyrus from around 2500 BC. At that time, cold water, snow and ice were used to cool the body. For over a hundred years, cold has been used by medicine to puff on sick areas or the entire body, for example to reduce high fever. The first cryogenic chamber for liquid nitrogen was built by a Japanese professor. Toshiro Yamauchi from the Oita Rheumatology Institute. In Poland, cryotherapy treatments with the use of liquid nitrogen have been used since the early 1980s.

  • Cryotherapy: after leaving the cryochamber

After leaving the chamber, you go to the gym. After such training, it is practiced without difficulty and pain. During 20-40-minute-long gymnastics, heat and highly oxygenated blood reaches the chilled organs, muscles and cells, which, circulating 4 times faster than usual, gives the body invigorating energy. Thanks to this, you can improve the joints, stretch the muscles, eliminate contractures and improve the overall shape. After the treatment, the whole body is relaxed andregenerated. The body's immunity increases and mood improves. You don't feel anxious or depressed. In women, unpleasant symptoms accompanying menopause alleviate. Every moment a good mood returns and energy grows. Even difficult exercises can be performed without any problems. Chronic pain and joint stiffness disappear and muscle spasms appear less. You can move mountains. This bliss will last for the next 6 hours.

Staying in the chamber is especially beneficial for people suffering from musculoskeletal disorders. After about 10 treatments, the old strength returns to the joints and muscles. You can discontinue not only kpe, but also painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs. The development of degenerative joint diseases is stopped for many months.

  • Cryotherapy in the chamber: indications

Cryochamber helps heal:

  • inflammation of joints, tendons and muscles,
  • rheumatic fever,
  • spine pain syndromes (especially when they occur in the lumbar region and the cpathic nerve),
  • rheumatism of soft tissues (e.g. tendinitis or perioditis),
  • joint contractures, postoperative swelling and painful scars,
  • neurological diseases (including paresis, disseminated encephalitis and spinal cord inflammation, myasthenia gravis, Parkinson's disease or acute neuritis),
  • rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic rheumatism
  • Cryotherapy in the chamber: contraindications

Cryochamber is not recommended for:

  • people with anemia, hypothyroidism, heart defects, severe angina and those who do not tolerate cold, have blood circulation and heart rhythm disorders,
  • people sweating excessively in times of emotional stress, e.g. stress. Sweat would turn into lumps of ice and they would feel severely cold,
  • a large group of elderly people, especially those over 65, who have had venous clots,
  • patients with cancer, with recent tissue or organ transplants, suffering from sensory disorders and with frostbite,
  • children under 10.

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