Talk:Cryotherapy

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 8 January 2019 and 16 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Chang.sar.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 18:44, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

tank method and icepacking

Question: Does cryotherapy only refer to the tank method, or does it also include icepacking? --Travisthurston 01:44, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

This does not sound like medical cryotherapy

I am not sure if this description of cryotherapy is accurate/appropriate. In medical literature, cryotherapy, also known as cryosurgery, is a commonly used in-office procedure for the treatment of a variety of benign and malignant (cancerous) lesions. The description given here is inadequately referenced and based upon dubious science. I was able to find the article that this entry is based/lifted from http://www.toytowngermany.com/lofi/index.php/t20572.html.

Well, in that case...

You're right. I performed that procedure as an intern this week. I'll look more into that verbiage. This description for the term may be third in priority after cryosurgery and icepacking. Thanks! --Travisthurston 01:02, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

User Vuo changed this to the previous description without discussion. Since people will refer to this entry, I would like to see an accurate medical description, rather than writing based upon popular (and dubious) press. If this is an acceptable practice of the term "cryotherapy," please provide some medical/scentific journal references. Please feel free to make comments. Neurodoc 05:20, 1 October 2006 (EST)

The article about cryosurgery already exists. Cryotherapy is an alternate, less accurate term. --Vuo 01:00, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

• This article should include both. The most common use for the term cyrotherapy refers to cryosurgery. This is a standard medical definition. We could include both descriptions, with links to cryosurgery and cryotherapy (chamber therapy) I recommend that Vuo starts to merge this info to that page. --Travisthurston 16:20, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

--> There, I already started it. cryotherapy (chamber therapy)

Good. This sounds like an acceptable compromise. Neurodoc 12:54, 4 October 2006 (EST)

okay Let's change the cryotherapy page to have the modern medical definition first (similar to cryosurgery), plus a secondary definition/ "could also be known as" section of the chamber technique with a link to Cryotherapy (chamber therapy). A little disamb section at the top would be best too. --Travisthurston 05:19, 5 October 2006 (UTC)
Let's give Vuo a few days to get their take..?

I see no reason to break the current structure. Think of the user's point of view. In order to get to the article about cryotherapy, he goes to a the cryotherapy disambiguation page, which has links to cryosurgery and cryotherapy. Including a link to the other uses at the top of the article is standard practice on Wikipedia to avoid pointless disambiguation pages. --Vuo 16:44, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Same from the other side. When I tell my patients to come in for cryotherapy appointment, they may go to wikipedia to look it up, then come in with their swimtrunks... I imagine that there are thousands of cryosurgeries happening everyday all over the world, many being termed as cryotherapy. For such a simple procedure, we choose to not to use "surgery". Patients would rather come in for therapy than surgery. The DAB section of the main article would only benefit the user. --Travisthurston 20:18, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

-->I believe You Are Both Wrong, Cryotherapy Also Refers To A Method Of Rehabilitation Treatment In The Chiropractic Field. This Definitions Would Be Quite Different In Application, Similar Only In Nature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.236.107.2 (talk) 19:29, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

References not in English.

Also, the first two refs are not in english and don't belong on the english language wikipedia. We could do a babelfish translation on them. [1], [2]... Is there a Finnish wiki? --Travisthurston 20:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

You're seriously mistaken if you think only English references are considered reliable sources by Wikipedia, or that they're forbidden. I remember a text from the 1940's Finland that first listed the correct facts (from Finnish sources) and then mentioned the unreliable sources also: "According to foreign sources, ..." --Vuo 22:22, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

It's not the reliability I am talking about. If the ref was in english, I could make a judgement of whether or not the source is reliable. dig? I think any source is better than none, and welcome as many as needed. All I am asking is that someone close to the article translates it to english.
See WP:CITE for clarification on what is a good ref. Look for this passage. "Because this is the English Wikipedia, English-language sources should be given whenever possible, and should always be used in preference to other language sources of equal calibre. However, do give references in other languages where appropriate. If quoting from a different language source, an English translation should be given with the original-language quote beside it." --Travisthurston 23:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

New format

I changed the page to include all uses of the term. (or the top three) I 'll flag down an admin to confirm that the expanded DAB nature of this article is wiki-approved. Please build on it! Thanks. --Travisthurston 16:28, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

I still disagree with this, given the fact that the separate articles for cryosurgery and ice pack therapy exist. Furthermore, the formatting is poor and the chamber therapy article is not updated accordingly (still contains the copyvio or how-to-style text). Cryogenic chambers don't have any cold water in them. --Vuo 22:26, 7 October 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured. I have seen all of your reverts. Have you tried googling the term? Looking it up anywhere else? I'll fix the copyvio situation, and clarify that chamber therapy doesn't involve any water. Anything else that you can think of? --Travisthurston 02:40, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Entrez PubMed gives a mixture of the different meanings, at least. --Vuo 10:24, 8 October 2006 (UTC)

Just a comment - Glad to see the new format. I think this restructued format will be of benefit to readers learning about cryotherapy/surgery. --Neurodoc 3:05, 04 Octover 2006 (EST)

Merge with Cryotherapy (chamber therapy)

I realize the reason that Cryotherapy (chamber therapy) was created as a separate article from this one, but I think that the rationale of "patients think that cryotherapy and cryosurgery are analogous" is not a good reason. I'd suggest restoring the text of this page to this version (with some stylistic modifications), and add the content from Cryotherapy (chamber therapy) where appropriate. Rather than this being a disambiguation page, it would serve more of as an overview page. If the content on chamber therapy ever is further developed, it could be split back to its own page...but for now, there is no need for it. --Scott Alter 04:39, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

After months with no comments, I have completed the merge. --Scott Alter 20:47, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Any reliable references?

All the English links in the References section are www pages of companies offering the therapy or products for the therapy (I cannot check those Finish articles). Per Wikipedia:RS#Overview, "Articles should rely on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." So these links cannot be considered reliable references. I will move them to the links section (I am not sure if they should be present at all). Are there any reliable references?--Jirka6 (talk) 19:00, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps in response to this, some of refs are changed. However, the Costello et al paper (ref 1) prominently referred to in the chamber therapy section actually shows that the treatment has no effect (other than changing body temp slightly). Thus it is a little misleading to use this article to introduce the subject. In addition to using another reference to introduce, perhaps a note should be added stating that this particular study showed no muscle benefit from the therapy. Have any (peer-reviewed) studies shown therapeutic effects? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.251.21.219 (talk) 05:54, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

ICE?

Why is "ice" in all caps in the heliotherpy section? 198.232.211.130 (talk) 17:52, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

Cryosurgery vs. Cryotherapy

What is the difference, Cryosurgery vs. Cryotherapy?

WP has two separate articles, similar content, no clear explanation.

Cryosurgery could be considered sub-category of more general concept of Cryotherapy.

Or, Cryosurgery could be considered to be destructive treatment, Cryotherapy non-destructive treatment.

But in practice, the terms seem to be used rather inter-changeably. So, I'd propose that the articles be merged, with inclusion of whatever can be properly said about any differences.

There do not seem to be relevant disambiguation pages now.-96.233.19.238 (talk) 13:46, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

fat tissue, weight loss

I see no mention of

• topical application of cold to destroy fat tissue
• whole body exposure to cold for weight loss (see brown fat)

(these two are unrelated). Do they count as cryotherapy or is the omission deliberate?--92.77.216.142 (talk) 10:02, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't know much about using topical cold to destroy fat tissue but I am severely skeptical. A treatment that destroyed underlying fat tissue would kill everything above it too (major frostbite). As for whole body cold for fat loss related to brown fat, the effect may be real ("statistically significant") but is in no way a big enough change for it to be a viable weight loss option ("clinical significance"). You burn about 400% more calories walking at a slow pace than you do sitting in a cold room. I propose that these effects aren't clinically significant to include in this article. --ITasteLikePaint (talk) 16:04, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

Tone/quality of the article

I came here to read up on what cryotherapy is and a lot of this article sounds like a sales pitch, never mind that quite a few sections have no citations whatsoever. I'm hesitant to put any tag on it at this point since I don't really know the topic, but if no one is able to convince me otherwise within a few weeks, I'll see what I can do. At this point, it seems to have "primary sources", does not cite enough sources and I dare say it relies on fringe theories. Prove me wrong on that please. Akesgeroth (talk) 19:38, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. I'll tag it as questionable. 2601:14A:C002:83A2:3D78:4B89:1B33:8D17 (talk) 20:18, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

It seems mostly to be a case of misdirected weight on WBC. The use of ice packs, icewater baths, and cold water are all pretty common. PMID 22336838 may be useful.LeadSongDog come howl! 13:55, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

merge Cryosurgery/Cryotherapy/Cryoablation together

Cryosurgery/Cryotherapy/Cryoablation are all commonly interchangeable terms

currently 3 articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryoablation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryosurgery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryotherapy

these articles are all redundant and duplicate the information from others

merging is the only solution

Cryosurgery should be retained with redirects from Cryoablation/Cryotherapy Cryosurgery: "Uses" section to be retained and updated with information from cryoablation/cryotherapy

Cryoablation: "History" section to be retained and added to Cryosurgery article — Preceding unsigned comment added by 185.32.179.165 (talk) 15:24, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Partial Disagree All cryosurgery is cryotherapy but not all cryotherapy is cryosurgery. I agree that they could probably all be merged but they should be merged under cryotherapy. -ITasteLikePaint (talk) 05:24, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Updated the page

I have updated the page by adding a couple of additional references and taken out the flag requesting additional citations on the Whole Body Cryotherapy. Where it asked for a citation I have reworded that sentence. In general my reading suggests that cryotherapy has some benefits but in almost all instances papers are asking for further research. I understand that views differ quite a bit so I have tried to concentrate on areas that have general agreement or more research required. In the headache section I could only find 1 study so made that section as factual as I could as the evidence is based on a very small sample size.HaraldW1954 (talk) 04:50, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

Wim Hof?

Is it a topic that should be addressed here? 95.74.55.214 (talk) 05:55, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

No. Bon courage (talk) 06:13, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Effective method or malarkey?

In the lead, we are given much strong medicine to the effect that is is a lot of crap: "there is little evidence as to its efficacy that has been replicated", "there has been much controversy regarding whether cryotherapy is actually beneficial or may be causing the opposite effect" et cetera. My impression is that this is meant to refer to the strange things and folk remedies; sure, fine. But then there is a section about cryosurgery, which seems like a very obviously effective technique that is used by all sorts of legitimate practicioners (see here for example). Then it links to cryonics.

Is there something I don't understand going on here, or is this just a confusing and unintentional contradiction? If the latter, I'd recommend it be rewritten substantially. jp×g 15:20, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Cryonics is full-on woo. Cooling during surgery is routine. If "cryotherapy" is controversial relay that? Maybe there are sources we miss? Bon courage (talk) 16:52, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Well, that is what I mean. Right now, the article makes a series of statements like such:

Cryotherapy is goofy and doesn't really do anything.

Cryotherapy includes weird stuff where you rub ice cubes on your scalp to achieve eternal youth or whatever.

Cryotherapy also includes this thing that surgeons do on a regular basis which is fully accepted as normal, useful practice of medicine.

If it's "a commonly performed outpatient procedure because of the combination of its safety, effectiveness, low cost, ease of use, lack of need for injectable anesthetic, and good cosmetic results", there can't be "little evidence as to its efficacy"; this statement is either completely incorrect or talking about a different thing. jp×g 01:20, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

That's a link to an article about cryosurgery, a different topic. Bon courage (talk) 04:27, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

This article has a section titled "cryosurgery". I am talking about that. Imagine, if you will, an article called "medicine" that included sections about homeopathy and penicillin, and then said in the lead that "medicine has been proven to not work because it's just water". Do you see how this would be incorrect? jp×g 20:46, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Okay, rather than explain it, I have just gone and fixed the lead myself. It was really bad: a bunch of stuff added by a new account with that as their only edit, and a bunch of it was straightforwardly incorrect about what the cited sources said. So most of it was just utterly bad and had to go; the rest I moved to the appropriate sections rather than just having it bloat out the lead. jp×g 21:32, 19 October 2023 (UTC)