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I was asked an interesting question.  Do I know of anyone who has used cryostimulation (aka. cryosauna technology / whole body cryotherapy / partial body cryotherapy) on a dog?  The short answer is ‘no’.  But I wanted to look up the research a bit more to see what kind of validation the practice had, or not!

So, I hit pubmed and found the following recent review paper:

Bouzigon R. et al.  Whole- and partial-body cryostimulation / cryotherapy: Current technologies and practical applications.  J Therm Biol 61, Oct 2016: 67 – 81.

Here are the highlights:

Cryostimulation is the process of putting a person into a cold chamber (whole body cryotherapy) or part of the body into a cold unit, leaving the head and neck out of the cryochamber (partial body cryotherapy).  Technically speaking, cryotherapy refers to the use of cryotechnologies for the treatment of a patient, whereas cryostimulation has been used for healthy subjects (i.e. healthy athletes).

Firstly, it appears that the technology varies widely.  This paper reported that there were 15 manufactures worldwide (as the time of publication), and that they reported exposure temperature ranges anywhere from -10˚C to -110˚C (one unit) or down to -120˚C to -170˚C.  Some companies could not provide a temperature range.  It was unknown.

Temperature decreases in body / skin temperature with exposure tended to vary with temperature, time exposed and number of exposures.  One study reported a 5.6˚C reduction in skin temperature whereas another reported a 19.5˚C.  Internal body temperature has only been measured in a few studies, but changes in internal body temperatures never reduced by more than 0.8˚C.  

Conditions tested and studied included:

•Rheumatoid Arthritis: finding a positive effect for inflammation, pain fatigue, walking morning stiffness, disease score activity, physician’s global assessment, & quality of life.

•Fibromyalgia: finding a positive effect for pain, fatigue, disease score activity and quality of life.

•Ankylosing Spondylitis: finding a positive effect for disease score index, functional score index, pain intensity, spinal mobility parameters, fatigue, and functional abilities.

•Multiple Sclerosis: finding positive effects for improvement of functional status, increase superoxide dismutase, increase total antioxidative status, and increase in uric acid concentration in plasma.

•Low back Pain or Spinal pain syndromes:  finding positive effects for pain, disability index, general well-being, quality of life, and mood.

•Depression & Anxiety: finding a positive effect for depressive symptoms and anxiety symptoms.

Other studies investigated cryostimulation on recovery enhancement after exercise.  The majority of the studies looked at inflammatory markers and found a positive effect in these areas.  A handful of studies looked at muscle damage and found improvements in muscle strength, pain, maximal voluntary contraction, perceived pain and well-being, as well as some functional tests.  Studies that looked at the Autonomic nervous system found positive effects on heart rate variability, max. aerobic work output, lactate variation, VO2 peak, ANS activity, and parasympathetic nervous system activity.  Two studies looked at sleep and found improved perceived quality of sleep, time in bed, get up time, sleep latency and efficiency, and perceived fatigue.  Oxidative stress also appeared to have been positively impacted in three studies.

What I hadn’t realized until reading this review, whole body cryotherapy is created by having the whole of the body in a cold room, whereas partial body cryotherapy occurs in an open tank in which the subject is exposed to cold, excluding the head and neck.  With partial body cryotherapy, cold is created by spraying nitrogen directly at the body of the patient inside the tank.  The patient’s head must be outside of the tank to avoid breathing the nitrogen.  One study found that temperature variations were wide and inconsistent with the partial body cryotherapy ‘cryocabin’/’cyrosauna’ units, with temperatures being variable from front to back, top to bottom and centre of the cabin versus the walls.  The whole-body cryotherapy devices appear to be safer, so long as a patient / subject is monitored and there are safety procedures applied (i.e. security button / security door for fast exit).

Okay, so the technology seems to have a potential benefit, but what do I think about it’s use with dogs?

My biggest issue is that we can’t tell the dog what is going to happen.  We can’t explain the procedure and reassure the dog that it is for a short period of time only.  We can’t obtain their consent to this treatment.  We don’t know how much the hair might buffer the process.  And I surely wouldn’t spray nitrogen on a dog’s fur: would it damage the hair (i.e. as in ‘freeze brands’ seen on horses) and/or stay ‘wet’ for too long and cause skin damage?

So, while I think it is fascinating technology, I’m not sure I’d make an immediate jump to using it in our animal population.