A healing chill: Cryotherapy may offer relief for chronic injuries

Spending a few minutes at -220 degrees does not exactly sound appealing. Is anyone else already reaching for a blanket?

Not Lenys Alcoreza of Restore Hyper Wellness, who promises that just three minutes of full-body cryotherapy is exactly what you need to experience a multitude of healing benefits, including reduced inflammation and better sleep.

And she is living proof.

In 2018, Alcoreza suffered from a failed knee replacement surgery and lived with so much swelling and pain that amputation was proposed as a possible solution.

“I was losing muscle and I was going into muscle atrophy,” she recalled. “Somebody had told me about cryotherapy, and later I happened to be driving by a Restore Hyper Wellness. I went in and asked about cryotherapy, and within maybe three months, the swelling on my leg started going down — something that had not happened for three and a half years. That allowed me to get back into yoga, strength training and therapy to start waking up that muscle.”

She was so impressed with the treatment, that in 2020 she and her husband became owners of their own Restore Hyper Wellness franchise.

Cryotherapy works in a similar way to applying ice to a sore joint or muscle, albeit at an incredibly higher intensity. The extreme cold forces blood to flow toward your core, dropping your overall body temperature by several degrees. Once you step out of the chamber, highly oxygenated blood flows back through your body to warm you up, and this process is what provides the benefit.

“The main benefits of cryotherapy are to help manage inflammation and put your body in a better position to handle physical stress,” said Alcoreza. “When you ice an area, the blood goes the opposite way away from the cold. When you remove the ice, the blood comes with higher concentration of oxygen cells, helping with the inflammation. It’s the same thing at a whole body level.”

Cryotherapy can help with muscle recovery for athletes and anyone with an active lifestyle, Alcoreza explained. She said that it is great for people who run or play sports, especially when coupled with other types of therapy such as compression or localized cryotherapy. In this case, extreme cold air is applied specifically to the area experiencing pain or injury, such as a knee or shoulder.

For Alcoreza, it was the combination of both full body and local cryotherapy that helped solve her knee pain.

“I started with the whole body three times a week. The first two weeks, I felt good overall but I didn’t see that much of a difference,” said Alcoreza, who at the time said she was in constant pain from her knee. Then, she noticed that she could walk from the studio to her car without pain, and over time things continued to improve. “I started seeing the swelling come down and I wouldn’t have pain for a couple of hours. It was gradual, and to get to the level where I could do other activities probably took two or three months.”

Restore Hyper Wellness offers a number of other treatment options, such as compression, IV drips and hyperbaric oxygen. A medical professional helps guide clients to the modalities that are best suited for their areas of concern. Many people find that cryotherapy is helpful for more than just pain relief, it may also help with sleep and offer some anti-aging benefits.

“There’s something for everybody,” said Alcoreza. “Our objective is that when you leave, you’ll feel more relaxed. You’ll feel a little bit better than when you came in. That is the purpose.”