History of Cryotherapy

Cryotherapy has come a long way from when it was first discovered by Dr. Yamaguchi in 1978. He drew on the idea of using cold to treat injuries and transformed it into the revolutionary medical treatment that is taking the world by storm today. While the concept of putting something cold on an injury has existed since the dawn of time, Cryotherapy takes this approach much further.

Dr. Yamaguchi of Japan started using extremely cold temperatures to treat his patients who suffered from rheumatic diseases. He noticed that the treatment was extremely successful not just for rheumatic diseases, but for a number of other conditions as well. Dr. Yamaguchi discovered that rapidly cooling the surface of the skin significantly reduced the soreness and pain his patients were experiencing in their joints due to the rapid decrease of temperature of the skin’s surface leading to a release of endorphins which led to a decrease in pain.

Dr. Yamaguchi and his team came to the conclusion that using a cryosauna to rapidly cool the surface of the skin was much more effective than immersing a patient in an ice bath. While ice baths have been the previous method for treating patients suffering from pain of any kind, while it was discovered that ice baths actually did more harm than good. The benefits of whole body Cryotherapy over ice baths stem from the fact that in an ice bath the cold penetrates below the skin which in turn damages both the skin and the muscles. This makes it makes the muscles more susceptible to tearing and prolongs the healing progress in the long run. After Dr. Yamaguchi discovered these benefits his revolutionary Cryotherapy technology was brought to Europe to be refined. The research that ensued resulted in Cryotherapy being used for the whole body rather than a specific body part.

Over the past 3 decades numerous studies have confirmed the benefits of whole body Cryotherapy, which were initially researched by Dr. Frieke in Germany. Today Cryotherapy has become the go to method for recovery from sports injuries, chronic pain, and inflammation. It has even been used to effectively treat cancer.

Cryotherapy is no longer just a treatment for pain, it has become part of a holistic approach with numerous positive effects on the body including weight loss, a production of collagen in the skin, an increase in energy, and boosting the metabolism. The prospects of Cryotherapy continue to grow everyday as more and more scientific research is conducted.