Charles Runels: Okay. What you’re hearing is liquid nitrogen. One of the cool things about this machine versus the one where your head pokes out is that the nitrogen is blowing into the walls. The ones where your head pokes out, the nitrogen blows into the chamber where you are. The reason this is better is that … for several reasons. One is when the nitrogen blows into the chamber where you are, it can actually spray on your leg. Well, heck that’s how we take warts off. So it will, understandably, burn you. It doesn’t happen often, but it can happen. Most people that have a cryo-center like this, eventually they burn somebody, which we don’t have that risk because the nitrogen does not blow into the chamber.
Charles Runels: The second thing is that the nitrogen is not poisonous, 70% of the air I’m breathing now in this room and in your room is nitrogen. It’s inert basically. It goes in and out of your body. But if there’s too much of it, then there’s not enough oxygen, and you pass out. So the ones where your heads poking out, down here, there’s not enough oxygen to live on. Your head’s poking out and that’s on purpose because if they didn’t stop it here, you couldn’t breathe. You could breathe, but there wouldn’t be enough oxygen. So you’re not getting a whole body treatment. You’re getting a neck down treatment.
Charles Runels: This is still part of my body. The research that’s been done, much of which has come out of Europe, is whole body, is people putting their whole body in here, including their head. In Europe, insurance covers it. In Poland, Europe, throughout Europe, their national insurance covers two treatments a week for five weeks for orthopedic injuries, paid for by the government, because the research is so strong that it helps orthopedic injuries. But in Europe, you’re not in a little chamber with your head poking out. I’m not saying it doesn’t help, but in Europe, you’re in a chamber big enough for several people at the same time in their underwear walking around in a chamber until their three minutes are up, because you need all of your body in there. So it works better than the head poking out kind, it’s safer than the head poking out top kind, and it’s just more fun. It’s cooler.
Charles Runels: So here we go. Oh, and we have a window. The window comes down so if you’re claustrophobic enough that being completely closed in is a problem for you, you can push a button, and I’ll show you.
DanielleGautier: I don’t think it will open until you start treatment.
Charles Runels: Okay. So we can’t do it until I start. But they’ll demonstrate for you when I’m in there, they can make the window come up and down and we can talk to you. We also got Bluetooth. I usually like to freeze to either Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird,” or Prince’s “Purple Rain.” That just tells you how old I am. But sometimes I’ll listen to classical music or just the silence and meditate. But we can take whatever your favorite music is and you can listen to it while you’re being treated.
Charles Runels: Okay, so, things that are dangly like earlobes need to be covered. Fingers and toes, so I have on shoes. You don’t have to show them my feet, but I do have on shoes. We give you clogs. You can wear your own underwear and socks. Okay. And then I have a mask, just because the cold will sometimes make people cough, so I’ll hold it over my mouth sometimes until I kind of get used to it and then I’ll take it away. If it feels like it’s about to make me cough, I’ll put it back on. So it’s not necessary, but the air actually kind of feels good to your lungs. Some people actually think it helps fight infections. But anyway, this is the garb you need. If you’re a female, all you really need is this, gloves, and sock and shoes. If you’re a male, you need to wear your underwear too. But we have females who will wear their bra and panties, whatever. I have all girls here, so whatever you want to do.
Charles Runels: Okay, so let’s do this thing. We should re-cool it, because it’s gotten hot. Heck, it’s minus 193 degrees. I’m going to be sweating in there. So can we re-cool the thing?
DanielleGautier: Mm-hmm (affirmative). We stop it.
Charles Runels: Yeah, stop it and restart it. Good.
DanielleGautier: [inaudible 00:04:14]
Charles Runels: All right. All right. Because I want it minus 200. Now, yo would think that women because they’re usually at the same age not as lean as most men, you would think that they would get cold more slowly than men, but research actually shows that women conduct the cold faster and their core temperature drops faster than men even though they have higher percent body fat. So if you’re a female, minus 160 for two and a half minutes. It’s about the same as a male going minus 200 for three minutes. They’re equivalent. But if you want to go to minus 200 as a female, go for it. Most of our athletes do that. They’ll go minus 220 for three minutes and they really love it.
Charles Runels: So here’s one of our superstars right here. Say hello.
Katelyn Duff: Hi.
Charles Runels: Introduce yourself.
Katelyn Duff: I’m Katelyn. I’m a cryo therapist here.
DanielleGautier: [crosstalk 00:05:16]
Charles Runels: Okay, so Katelyn is a really elite basketball player. She’ll be one of the people that will be freezing you when you show up, and she understands this both as a cryo therapist standpoint and from an athlete standpoint about how to integrate this with your training, how often and how to think about it.
Charles Runels: Okay, so we’re down to minus 197 and it’s spraying nitrogen in there and we should be ready when we get down to minus 200. Give me some Prince “Purple Rain.”
DanielleGautier: Yep.
Charles Runels: Okay.
DanielleGautier: And we’re ready.
Charles Runels: So we’re ready to fly. All right. Prince “Purple Rain,” and here we go. You going to close me off?
Katelyn Duff: Yes.
DanielleGautier: Yes.
Charles Runels: Yeah. You know the “Purple Rain” is heaven.
Katelyn Duff: All right. So this can also help promote weight loss, burns anywhere from 5- to 800 calories a session. And the more you’re in there shivering a bit, the more that this is going to be working for you and pushing all the blood to your organs.
And once you come out of the chamber, your blood’s going to rush back to your appendages and you can get into much deeper stretches if you’re doing your yoga or getting ready to go play golf or basketball, whatever it is that you do. Runners A lot of people at time can be nervous. This is semi-new. Some will ask, “Is this painful?” It is not painful. Not at all. Especially once you come out, there’s almost a euphoria that you’ll feel.
Katelyn Duff: Let see if we’ll … wait.
Charles Runels: So drop the window down so they can see how it works.
Katelyn Duff: Well, it looks like our window’s stuck at the moment. That’s no problem. That’s an easy fix but I don’t want to mess his treatment going through this. The door also is only held with magnets, so you can just push this open if you wanted to and I could push that red button and it’d actually make that window come down. It doesn’t hurt anything, but we want him to get a good session here. And your favorite tune will just keep things moving a little faster for you.
Katelyn Duff: Let me see. Pretty simple. Myself, whenever I’m feeling … Let’s just say moody so to say, this really does help lift your mood. I feel like I’m walking around on a cloud afterwards, but it gives you this mind clarity, this calmness. It’s this energy burst but without that caffeine jitter.
Katelyn Duff: You can do this more than once in a day. We have some of our members that will come in before they go to work, after work, before workout, after workout. You just don’t want to be sweaty when you go inside, but this has been remarkable for a lot of our patients who are either trying to not be on pain meds or wean off of the pain meds. Doing this instead of having to be on some sort of opioid. All right. End of three minutes. You’re done. There you go.
Charles Runels: All right. That’s how it goes. Beautiful.
