Two of the most effective ways to help treat a range of different skin conditions involve two of the simplest tools on the planet: heat and cold.
The former is often part of laser skin tightening treatments, as the radiofrequency waves heat the deep layer of your skin which creates firmer and more youthful-looking skin.
Cold treatments such as a CryoPen treatment, on the other hand, involves the precise use of extreme cold to enable effective, permanent removal of skin blemishes such as warts freckles and blisters.
To understand how it works, it is important to understand how cold therapy works, how cryotherapy works on a larger scale, and how this can be precisely used to target very specific blemishes.
The Basics Of Cold Therapy
If you have ever used an ice pack to reduce a painful bruise or swelling, you have taken advantage of cold therapy.
Heat and cold have different distinct effects on the body, with heat causing an increase in circulation that helps injuries heal faster, whilst cold reduces pain, bleeding and inflammation.
It does this primarily by reducing the circulation of blood around a specific area.
Cryotherapy And Cryosurgery
This basic principle is taken to the next level with two different types of therapeutic intervention that both take advantage of the extreme cold provided by frozen dry air, often taking advantage of liquid nitrogen’s extremely low freezing point.
The first is cryotherapy and has been used to reduce pain and relieve the symptoms of skin conditions such as eczema.
It works by having a patient step into a cryotherapy chamber, either one that covers the whole body or most of the body except for the head whilst the temperature is carefully reduced.
Its best use is to treat pain or injuries soon after they occur.
Another treatment that uses a similar process for very different results is cryosurgery, which despite the name is a non-surgical and minimally invasive procedure that is effective at treating a range of skin and soft-tissue issues.
The CryoPen is a particularly small and non-invasive treatment that has been used for several skin conditions such as acne, warts and
It works because cells only survive within a certain temperature range. When they get too cold, ice crystals form inside the cells and tear them apart, which is why verrucas and warts treated with cryosurgery turn white.
This, combined with a freezing of blood vessels next to the affected area stops the spot from growing. This creates a weal that will form a crust that will drop off after 14 days, signifying that the skin is fully healed.
Because of the accuracy and precision of tools such as the CryoPen, there is no damage to nearby healthy tissue, with the only consequence being a mild nettle-like sting on the skin for around ten minutes after the procedure.
This can make it an effective treatment for verrucas and warts that chemical treatments such as Bazuka gel failed to remove, without the need for surgery or more invasive procedures.
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