Cryotherapy and IV Therapy
- Lacie Rothrock
- May 1, 2023
- 7 min read
Ok, for starters, I just need to note that I am NOT a doctor and this blog does not contain medical advice. It is only a personal recap of experiences. Please make your own decision or consult a medical professional when making a decision on if you want to do Cryo, IV therapy, or any other medical treatments. Also, remember, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.
Now that I have that out of the way, let's talk about Kamdyns experience with cryo and Iv therapy. Kamdyn is one that deals with pain often, due to overuse and pushing her body to the max... yet she still chooses to do so. She sees a chiropractor regularly for her back and hips. She does a lot of contortion stuff and hyper-extended moves in her dances and has for many years. It's kind of what she is known for. That being said, it's hard on her body and pushes it past the normal limits of a body. It's not normal to bend yourself in half or put your foot behind your head... yes she does it with grace.
She often struggles with back and hip pain, and her chiropractor seems to do well managing that... that and a TON of Biofreeze and Arnicare gel (we should buy stock in these if we were smart). She recently started complaining of pain in her lower legs, I can only explain it as pain in her shins, most likely she has some shin splints. One downfall to her pre-comp routine is she's not the best at stretching before dancing ALL day. She isn't one that needs to stretch in order to be flexible, so she doesn't. That means she goes on "cold". This puts some strain on her muscles and they eventually will fight back. Im always telling her that she needs to take care of her body now if she wants it to take care of her later in life and in her career.
Many moons ago, when she first started having back pain, I thought about taking her to get some cryo done. There was a new cryo place down the street from her studio, but then we ended up with the chiropractor and just started doing that so we never tried cryo. Recently with the leg pain, we started talking about ice baths and whatnot since her normal biofreeze and ibuprofen weren't taking the edge off. A local place was recommended to us by a friend. They do whole body and local cryo therapy so I thought id ask her if she wanted to give it a shot. She of course was ALL about it.
While researching their services, I noticed that they do IV Therapy. Hydration is something that she has struggled with for years (and her sodium levels..... pickles help with that). It's actually landed her in the ER several times, just needing an IV bag to hydrate. I know some people say "Just drink more water", well with her, that is easier said than done. For starters, she HATES the way water tastes (that's why we do the IV powder to add to water, it helps), and she's also just going none stop and forgetting to drink water. She might have a little bit at the beginning of the day, maybe a few sips through the day, and drinks once at the studio... which is so not enough. So I asked her if she would want to get a bag of fluids while we were there, and she of course did. We did not do the IV bags with all the vitamins and such added in as she was only doing it for hydration. She felt amazing the next day. They also had these super cool massage chairs to sit in while she got her bag of fluids. One thing I like about this place is we had to fill out medical history forms and had a meeting with a nurse practitioner before she was even allowed to get her IV bag.
The treatment started out with her IV bag. They said it's better to do the IV first before Cryo. The nurse administering the IV was great at setting it.... no pain, super fast, and kamdyn didn't react at all. She hung out in the massage chair and the whole IV process took about an hour.
Next was local therapy. They like to do the local before the whole body because you have to be able to make sure that your skin temperature is back up to a certain degree before you can go into the whole body chamber and its easier to warm up a local spot before the whole body, versus warm up your whole body before a local treatment. They had her hop on a long bench, much like an exam table at a doctor's office but not as extreme. She was able to just pull the legs of her leggings up to her knees and the one administering the treatment explained a lot to her and answered any questions she could think of while getting the local therapy. While administering the treatment she monitored her skin temperature the entire time to make sure it doesn't drop below a specific level. This session only took about 5 minutes. We had to wait about 15 minutes for her skin temp to rise back up to a safe level before the whole body.
Last but not least was the whole-body treatment. They showed Kamdyn the changing room and gave her some nice fancy socks and a robe. She wears socks to protect her little toes, they also gave her some big gloves for her hands. Her whole body treatment would be using temperatures of -260 degrees!! After she steps into the chamber they raise it up so just her head is sticking out the top and she can pass her robe out without feeling exposed. The treatment only lasts for two and a half minutes, especially the first time. The assistant talked to her the whole time, just trying to keep her mind occupied so the time would pass quickly because you know... it was COLD! I think Kamdyns mind froze as well because she couldn't think to answer some of the questions and engage much in conversation. It was actually quite comical. As soon as the two and a half minutes were up, she handed Kamdyn her robe back and out popped the kamdyn popsicle. They immediately took her skin temperature on the back of her leg to see if she could bump up to 3 minutes the next time she came. No, she can not. Her skin temperature was ridding to the lower end for 2 and a half minutes so staying in any longer than that wouldn't be safe for her.
The day after her treatments she was feeling much better. I will say she still has a little bit of residual pain in on leg, but overall, her leg pain was gone as well as her back and hip pain. I didn't expect it to fix everything 100%, so I'm happy with any improvement. I also feel like her hydration was better, which made it easier for her to maintain all weekend while at the comp. I will say, while she did have some benefits from the treatments, it wasn't exactly cheap. That's one thing I will have to consider if we think about going back.
Another thing I really liked about the place we went was the nurse who gave her IV treatment actually contacted us on Tuesday to check up on her and see how she was doing and how she liked Cryo. Kudos to the company for that. You know, it's hard with her since she pushes her body to the limit daily, and she doesn't like to take breaks. I know she's hard on her body, and I can only give her the knowledge to take care of her body, I can't do it for it. So, any things like this that provide a little care, I'm down for it.
My son was also dealing with some hip pain just from doing gymnastics, on top of his already consistent leg pain (he has Osgood-Schlatter disease in his leg), so he decided to try out the whole body cryotherapy just to see if it would have any improvement. It did! He said he immediately could tell a difference when he got out of the chamber. They tested his skin temperature when he was finished, just like they did Kamdyn, and he is able to go for 3 minutes next time. His pain continued to improve over the next few days. His one comment about it..."It was cold"...yes son, it was hahahaha.
I really think that if this is something that you can afford to do, there are benefits. To me, I kind of think of it as an ice pack or ice bath on crack... but doesn't take as much time. Which is also convenient when you have super busy kids. It's easy for them to carve out 5 minutes for a quick treatment. Heck, I might even try it for myself. The lady who helped Kamdyn and I said she does it just to help her sleep better. She said she can tell a difference in her sleep when she doesn't do it 1-2 times a week.
I know a few of Kamdyns fellow dancers and coaches also have done (or are currently doing) cryo therapy and have had good results with dealing with muscle fatigue and pain. I know when I had a severe ankle injury a couple of years ago and then had to do physical therapy to get back to walking, at the end of my session they would do "cold therapy", which was essentially targeted cryo in boot form. It was like the treat at the end of a hard workout, the cherry on top, something I look forward to after doing an hour of therapy that was nowhere near fun ( and pretty painful at first). I LOVED it! It really did make a difference in my recovery and my pain levels following the PT sessions.
Anywho, thanks for coming along on our Cryo journey. Let me know if you try it out and what you think!
-Rothrock Mom
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