Cryotherapy arrives in Sonoma

Ice baths have long been elixirs for athletes. Submerge a sore knee into 50-degree water, and the knee that emerges is wondrously restored. But ice baths are analogue, quaint and old-school. Today, athletes seeking treatment for pain step into a minus 120-degree cryochamber.

Steph Curry is a fan. Lebron James, too. Self-help guru Tony Robbins is said to use his machine at home every day. But cryotherapy, proponents say, isn’t only for elites. Ordinary people with everyday pains have begun to subscribe to the therapeutic benefits of extreme cold.

Taylor Serres, 29, is a true believer. So she bought a $60,000 Impact Cryotherapy machine and opened a shop.

Sonoma Cryo is done up in a pleasing palette of earth tones, with clean, modern lines and a spare aesthetic. There’s an infrared sauna - said to help dilate peripheral blood vessels and reduce pain - and a machine for extremities that involves glass beads and warm water. There are NormaTec Compression sleeves for the arms and legs, a sort of full-body blood pressure cuff that cuts blood flow systematically, and a small cryo machine for facials and spot treatments. But it’s the octagonal cryochamber that headlines the shop, steaming in its corner futuristically.

“The more you use it, the more effective it is,” Serres said. “It’s not one and done, it’s a maintenance program.” Serres said that her father was the family’s cryo test dummy, hobbled as he was with crippling hip pain. A friend recommended that they try the treatment, and sure enough, Serres’ father found the results astonishing. After years of heavy labor on the family’s blueberry farm he was in near-constant pain, and a program of intensive cryotherapy banished it.

“He was transformed,” Serres said. “This is not a placebo effect. I believe in it.”

Barbara Chatham believes, too, and was ready for her treatment. She had shed her streetwear in one of the two changing rooms, and was now wearing socks, neoprene booties, a robe and winter gloves. It was her second session in as many days, and she said they left her “tingly” and “energized.” Chatham is a slim, athletic sort, though plagued by old sports injuries from her youth. She bought a starter pack of whole body treatments the day Sonoma Cryo opened, and was enthusiastic about potentially reversing the aches and pains of middle age.

Invented in the 1970s by Dr. Toshima Yamauchi in Japan, cryotherapy was disparaged as fringe quackery for decades. But in recent years the practice has gone mainstream, with proponents promising head-to-toe benefits. In addition to decreased joint pain and muscle soreness, they say, regular cryogenic treatment can reduce inflammation, increase energy and testosterone, improve metabolism and promote weight loss, and even help with depression, anxiety and insomnia.

The science, on the other hand, remains undecided. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued a warning to consumers that the procedure’s efficacy remains unproven, and the American Academy of Dermatology has recommended against it. Last summer, former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown said he suffered serious frostbite in a cryotherapy machine, and showed up for training camp with blistered feet.

At Sonoma Cryo, safety is paramount. Customers fill out a lengthy online questionnaire before treatment, and are queried again once inside the shop. Heart condition? Open wounds? Cold allergy? Reynauld’s? One need not be an elite athlete, but good health is a must.

Facing the machine feels a bit daunting. It’s big and shiny and all the knobs are outside. Serres demonstrates how a client can break out if needed, and explains how a technician is always right there. Up two steel steps and one is inside the chamber. The door clicks and clients are asked to surrender their robe.

The cold is gradual, but levels down quickly. Within 30 seconds the machine has reached minus 93-degrees Fahrenheit, level 2. The machine is capable of a minus 120-degree level 3, but clients work their way up, rather than start there.

Standing still is impossible and so one tends to rotate, instinctively deploying the recommended “rotisserie roll.” For the first minute some clients report feeling fairly impervious, but then the cold settles and anxiety can spike.

“The body thinks that it’s dying and wants to protect the most important aspects of the body,” explained endurance athlete and cryotherapy proponent Michael Conlon in a newspaper article. “Then it realizes it’s not dying so it gets oxygen back to the working muscles.”

Serres keeps time, announcing it at intervals. “One minute. How you doing? Ten more seconds… You’re done!”

Upon exiting the chamber one feels, well, frozen, and descending the stairs is an ungraceful affair. Within seconds, users report a glow creeping all over the body, and that the joints where there had been pain feel a bit hot.

“People say they feel lighter afterward,” Serres said. “Usually, where there was pain feels pain free.”

Cryotherapy claim to force blood flow back to the nutrient-dense core, then re-distributes it to the extremities once out of the chamber. “It’s called ‘the push,’” Cerres explained. “One way or another, everything we do here is about the circulatory system.”

Though it is initially difficult to tell if the treatment has solved anything, there is a strange giddiness that arrives in a rush, a lightness of both body and mind.

And that is precisely why Serres loves cryotherapy. “If I can help someone feel happier, that’s all I need.”

Contact Kate at kate.williams@sonomanews.com.