How Often Should You Use Your Cold Therapy Machine?
After a soft tissue injury, you will need special care and treatment to reduce pain and inflammation. Thankfully, cold therapy has proved to be very effective in treating soft tissue injuries. In the past, people used ice packs to treat their injuries, but today this trend is slowly being replaced by new and highly advanced cryotherapy machines.
Some of these machines use ice water, while others use liquid nitrogen to offer cold therapy. Cold therapy machines have proved to be very effective in reducing pain and inflammation after an injury. They also help to accelerate the healing process. But how often should you use your cold therapy machine? This article talks about using a cryotherapy machine.
How Often Should You Use a Cold Therapy Machine?
Medical experts advise patients not to use the cold therapy machine continuously for more than 20 minutes. It is also important to apply cold therapy immediately after an injury occurs and apply it periodically for at least 72 hours. This helps to minimize circulation in the injured area, preventing the buildup of toxins that slow down the healing process.
The number of cold therapy sessions you have is determined by the severity of the injury and the results you want. Most fitness and medical experts advise you to have at least three cold therapy sessions per week. However, your doctor should create a customized cold therapy treatment based on your injury and treatment goals.
Some experts even recommend 7-10 treatment sessions spread over two to three weeks or just a few days. If you have cold therapy for the first time, your treatment sessions should be in close succession to maximize the results. But if you have this type of treatment regularly, you should have one or two sessions a week to maintain positive results.
The kind of results you want from your cold therapy also determines the number of times you use your cryotherapy machine. For instance, if you’re going to boost your overall energy and improve your general wellness, two weeks of cold therapy are enough. But if you are using cold therapy to recover from sports injuries and enhance your performance, you should have at least four sessions a week throughout your training period.
The length of each session depends on the type of cold therapy you want to have and the kind of injury you are treating. For example, a whole-body treatment in a chamber should take about three minutes, while a localized cryotherapy session should last between 10 and 20 minutes with several breaks in between.
