Cold therapy is usually applied in the acute phase of an injury or immediately after activity to reduce swelling, numb pain, and decrease blood flow to the area. It’s also beneficial for managing acute flare-ups of chronic conditions.
Cold is a vasoconstrictor that will cycle out stagnant fluid (including metabolic waste and inflammatory exudate) in an injured space.
When your body is exposed to the cold, it responds by constricting your blood vessels (also known as vasoconstriction), so all your blood gets pushed toward your organs. This causes the blood to acquire more oxygen and become nutrient rich
Cold therapy assists with Inflammation. Inflammation is at the root of many health complaints.
Cryotherapy may create an analgesic, or pain-relieving, effect by blunting nerve transmission (when a nerve fires a signal to the brain) in pain cells, per a review published in December 2020 in Pain and Therapy. This may suggest that cryotherapy could be an effective therapy for pain.
