Ireland's first Cryotherapy centre.

pH

It appears Ireland now has a Cryotherapy centre:
http://www.whitesofwexford.ie/cryotherapy-ireland.html

Basically it's a chamber capable of -110C, in which the 'patient' spends 3 minutes. An anecdote on the radio this morning has a hurler(?) explaining the treatment had worked for a sports related injury.

The use of cold as a fever reduction method and cold compresses for bruises, sprains is well documented, but what effect a mild skin cooling has is beyond me.

"The process is applied to the whole surface of the body in order to develop defensive reflexes and reactions which are therapeutically beneficial and effective in restoring the natural balance of the human organism."

This seems to be a Finish thing, the above quote seems nonsense, anyone come across this before?

ISAW

pH wrote:

It appears Ireland now has a Cryotherapy centre:
http://www.whitesofwexford.ie/cryotherapy-ireland.html

Basically it's a chamber capable of -110C, in which the 'patient' spends 3 minutes. An anecdote on the radio this morning has a hurler(?) explaining the treatment had worked for a sports related injury.

The use of cold as a fever reduction method and cold compresses for bruises, sprains is well documented, but what effect a mild skin cooling has is beyond me.

"The process is applied to the whole surface of the body in order to develop defensive reflexes and reactions which are therapeutically beneficial and effective in restoring the natural balance of the human organism."

This seems to be a Finish thing, the above quote seems nonsense, anyone come across this before?

On a related note... Yesterday on the radio someone was discussing a TV programme about a brain operation. the tumour was at the base of the brain and to get to it the surgeon and his team removed the blood and chilled it and "froze" the body. The surgeon said "you have a 25 percent chance of failure but the alternative is not really acceptable". _ That from memory I would appreciate a link to the original show.

The "freezing" was only for 12 mins or so (which though well beyond brain death is plausable).
Anyway, apparently in scandanavia she mentioned a woman who was accidentally frozen for 6 (yes SIX) hours was brought back! This i find difficult to believe.

anyone know about the TV programme?

Zillah

If she was frozen then no, she's dead. Humans cannot survive being frozen, the expansion of liquid bursts cells.

However, there are lots of stories about people being reduced to very low tempertures and being recussitated hours later. I remember one case when a young girl in Canada or Alaska got locked outside and simply shut down from the cold on the porch one night. She was recussitated hours later. The extreme cold prevented the brain from taking serious damage. That combined with her youthful capacity to heal and she was fine.

CodeMonkey

Zillah wrote:

If she was frozen then no, she's dead. Humans cannot survive being frozen, the expansion of liquid bursts cells.

Yeah, slow freezing of liquids results in ice crystals which destroy cells. There is a frog that lives in the mountain somewhere (the name and location escapes me) though that produces chemicals in the body which stops large ice crystals from forming when it freezes. This allows the frog to come back to life when it thaws. The scientists in this documentary I saw this in actually demonstrated this by putting the frog in the freezer and having the entire process filmed. Fascinating stuff.

However, there are lots of stories about people being reduced to very low tempertures and being recussitated hours later. I remember one case when a young girl in Canada or Alaska got locked outside and simply shut down from the cold on the porch one night. She was recussitated hours later. The extreme cold prevented the brain from taking serious damage. That combined with her youthful capacity to heal and she was fine.

Did you see "Kill Me to Cure Me" program from the Bodyshock series on channel4 a few nights ago? It was all about how people can survive hypothermia and get recussitated hours later and suffer no permanent brain damage. They have such a good understanding of it now that some doctors deliberately induce hypothermia so they can perform complex brain surgery before reviving the patient. That program followed a patient that went through this process.

Zillah

CodeMonkey wrote:

Yeah, slow freezing of liquids results in ice crystals which destroy cells. There is a frog that lives in the mountain somewhere (the name and location escapes me) though that produces chemicals in the body which stops large ice crystals from forming when it freezes. This allows the frog to come back to life when it thaws. The scientists in this documentary I saw this in actually demonstrated this by putting the frog in the freezer and having the entire process filmed. Fascinating stuff.

I recal them considering something similar for space cryostasis. The chemical made it so that water froze in spherical shapes rather than crystals so they wouldn't tear all the cells.

Did you see "Kill Me to Cure Me" program from the Bodyshock series on channel4 a few nights ago?

Nope, sounds cool though.