Our clients come in for things such as accidents, arthritis, age-related aches and pains, exercise recovery, headaches, inflammation, injuries, and post-op surgery relief. And most of them leave feeling much better! However, with all of the talk about pain relief, it’s natural to wonder if cryotherapy is working like a pain medication and hiding the pain or if it’s causing less pain because things are healing.

So, which is it?

The answer is that cryotherapy does a little of both, but in a completely natural way.

You see, pain medication forces your body to ignore the pain by blocking pain receptors or else by forcing a chemical change. While it can be a huge relief (and a much needed break) to not feel the pain anymore, the medication doesn’t help your body heal.

Cryotherapy encourages the formation of hormones that help boost your mood, cause relaxation, and help reduce inflammation. All of those things help control pain.

Unlike pain meds, cryotherapy doesn’t force your body to ignore the pain or numb you so you can’t feel it. It simply encourages a process that makes you feel better.

At the same time that it’s making you feel better, cryotherapy also increases your healing speed.

How does cryotherapy help you heal?

When you spend a short time in our cryosauna, blood races to your body’s core. It gains more nutrients and oxygen and shares them with your organs while it’s there. And then, when you step out of the sauna, more oxygen, nutrients, and enzymes flow into your arms and legs, too.

Toxins and damaged debris are carried away and disposed of while your cells, tissues (including muscles), and organs get what they need to heal. That’s why the pain relief our clients feel tends to last longer with each treatment until it’s fully gone.

Sometimes that means clients get to stop taking pain medication sooner than expected or that they can get full relief with a lower dosage (your doctor should advise you on both). For those who can’t or weren’t taking pain medication, cryotherapy is a way to get some relief while the healing happens.

Pain relief is nice and we want all of our clients to enjoy freedom from pain. But we also want them to heal and recover faster so they experience the peace of long-lasting results. Fortunately, cryotherapy can give you both!