The concept behind cryotherapy is very simple - it’s to use cold temperatures to treat the body for a range of conditions. It can be used to treat specific issues like verrucas or warts in a topical application, or as a treatment for the whole body.
One of the big advantages to cryotherapy is that it’s a non-invasive and non-surgical procedure. That means it’s accessible to many people and doesn’t require a long recovery period. In fact, for the majority of people no recovery time is required at all.
Here at LA Lipo we offer cryotherapy for age spots, warts, verrucae, skin tags, benign moles, milia, cherry angioma and solar lentigo.
The reason why cryotherapy is such a good option for all of these conditions is that it can be applied with great precision. That means we’re only targeting the wart, verruca, skin tag, mole, age spot or other imperfection and not causing any damage to the surrounding skin.
We use a CryoPen. This produces a “fine jet of nitrous oxide under high pressure”, which freezes the inter-cellular fluid in the targeted skin tissue. This has the result of destroying the affected skin cells, removing the imperfection without doing any damage to the healthy surrounding skin.
In addition to this kind of highly targeted cryotherapy, we also offer cryolipolysis, which is also known as fat freezing or body sculpting.
This is a non-invasive way of destroying fat cells in specific areas of the body. This isn’t a way of losing a significant amount of weight, but rather an opportunity to reduce the fat in a specific area of your body.
Common target areas for cryolipolysis include the neck, arms, stomach, thighs and hips. In this treatment, the specific area of your body is cooled to a temperature that crystalises the fat. These cells are then “evacuated from the body as part of the body’s natural functions”.
An article for the Express recently explored the benefits of cryotherapy, noting that it’s a long-standing technique that’s been delivered in a variety of ways for years.
Ice packs, coolant spray and ice baths are all versions of cryotherapy, the newspaper pointed out.
Lenka Chubuklieva, who runs a company that delivers whole body cryotherapy, told the news provider that this kind of treatment has a host of benefits, including reducing inflammation in the body.
She also pointed out how cryotherapy can have a positive effect on weight loss. She described it as “useful as a weight loss aid in combination with training and good nutrition”.
We always stress that cryolipolysis can’t be used to help you lose a significant amount of weight, it’s a procedure that needs to be utilised in conjunction with exercise and eating the right diet.
This treatment can lead to fat loss of between 20 and 45 per cent on the targeted area, provided that you follow the aftercare advice. You can have up to four areas treated at the same time. As there are no long-lasting side effects, you can have this treatment on a lunch break.
In general, people report some numbness, tingling, bruising and redness, if they have any side effects at all, and all of these typically subside and disappear shortly after the treatment finishes.
One woman who recently tried fat freezing for herself is Alison Izzo. Writing for Body+Soul she explained that, despite being active since having her daughter 18 months ago, she had some stubborn areas of fat around her belly and on her hips.
She decided to try fat freezing and booked an appointment to have both areas targeted. Aside from some pain directly after the treatment, Ms Izzo explained that the only side effects she experienced were a feeling of numbness on the areas that were treated for about two weeks, as well as a feeling that’s similar to bruising.
In answer to the question about whether fat freezing works, Ms Izzo wrote: “In a word, yes.”
Two weeks following the treatment she started noticing the first effects. “Around the six-week mark, my love handles are no longer peeking over the top of my pants, and by the eight-week mark my clothes feel looser around my waist too,” she revealed.
By the time 12 weeks have passed, Ms Izzo explained that she had a “noticeably flatter” stomach. When she went for a final measurement to see the effectiveness of the treatment, she had lost an impressive 11cm from her waistline, half a centimetre from her lower waist and 6cm from her love handles.
Ms Izzo also stated that she’d be happy to have the procedure again, concluding: “My clothes fit better than before I fell pregnant, I feel more confident and more like my ‘old’ self.”