Does cryotherapy hurt?

The pain of cryotherapy is usually mild and short-lived. Some body parts such as extremities may be more painful, and most swellings require multiple freezing sessions to completely eliminate them. The pain sensation is mainly caused by the patient’s skin, and the lesion area by the stimulating effect of low temperature, resulting in nerve damage and nerve irritation. If the pain is more pronounced after treatment, oral painkillers, such as painkillers and acetaminophen tablets, can be taken under the guidance of a medical professional to relieve the pain symptoms. If patients are more sensitive to pain, they can also apply local topical anesthetics before treatment, or take oral painkillers as prescribed by the doctor before treatment, or consider local injection of anesthetics to relieve the obvious pain felt during treatment. Cryotherapy is a treatment method that involves the controlled destruction or removal of tissue by freezing the local tissue. The advantages of cryotherapy are that it usually leaves no scarring, causes less damage to the skin or mucous membranes, and is more suitable for swellings that do not have the potential for malignant transformation, such as flat warts and common warts. The common freezing agent is liquid nitrogen, which vaporizes when applied to the affected area and absorbs a large amount of surrounding heat, thus producing the effect of cryotherapy. Patients should keep the area dry after the procedure and wait for the scabs to fall off naturally, and should not be touched by hands. If large blisters or blood blisters appear, disinfection can be performed to draw out the blister fluid, and then topical antibiotics, such as mupirocin ointment and erythromycin ointment, can be used to prevent infection.