X-Message-Number: 9976 Date: Sat, 4 Jul 1998 13:03:33 +0200 (MET DST) From: Trygve Bauge <> Subject: Re: Cryonics and pain. Having the world record for icebathing, (Currently 1 hour 5minutes and 51 seconds, set the 25th of April this year:) I know that the reheating process is much more painful than the cool down process. Anyone who has hold their hand under running cold water only to tear it back in pain, or anyone who has been out without gloves in cold weather only to experience the incruciating pain under one's finger nails upon going indoor, will know that cooldown and reheating can include pain. The bad news is that when you spend more than about 20 to 30 minutes in freezing cold water you experience that kind of pain all over that part of the body that has been submerged. think of it as having the pain associated with frozen fingers, but having it all over your body. The good news is that you can limit the pain with proper preparation execution and recuperation. As to the cool down pain this can be limited the following way: Take one long warm shower, one brief cold shower, another long warm shower and finish with one cold shower of medium length. All the showers should systematically cover the whole body. The first cold shower gives that painful cold shock. However, the body responds by contracting the blood vessels in the skin and by creating heat from within, The second cold shower doesn't feel that cold at all, and if you then go out icebathing it doesn't feel painful at all! You can actually jump in and stay in until you freeze to death without feeling any pain! You just go numb after a while. When I was in 1 hour and 4 minutes back in february of 1994 I couldn't feel my feet below the thighs. It felt like walking on stumps that stopped about ten inches below the groin! I have just been able to limit the cool down pain to that first shock in the shower. And even that is a minor kind of pain. The reheating pain I have , however, not been able to eliminate yet. If you go directly from icecold water and into a hottub at 104 degrees fahrenheit it feels good as long as you have only been a few minutes in the cold water. If you on the other hand have been in more than 20 minutes or so in the freezing cold water then the hot tub feels like boiling water. That is why I started going into an 86 degree tub. However after 48 minutes in cold water even an 86 degree tub feels like boiling water. Over the years I have started going from 32 degree water over in water that is still closer to 32 degree water. Last time I set the world record I went from cold water to about 60 degree water which I then started gradually warming up. The pain then didn't appear until after about 5 minutes when the water around me had reached about 65 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit. The pain lasted for about 10 minutes. While it lasts you feel like you are dying. However the good news is that it goes away after about 10 minutes and there is no lasting harm. It seems like the body's pain mechanisme kicks in between 60 and 70 degrees fahrenheit during the reheating. What apparently happens is that while the skin heats up, the blood vessels expand and warm blood from within the body goes out in the skin, thereby the skin warms up fast, the blood cools down fast and cold blod gets into the inner parts of the body too. At the same time the blood pressure falls drastically while the blood suddenly fills the blood vessels in the skin too. The drop in blood pressure might account for the feeling of fainting. The pain is only limited to the skin, and it doesn't seem to last more than 5 to 10 minutes. It helps to have the skin massaged while one is floating in the reheating tub. I am still trying to perfect the technique by experiencing with my own body, so to see how the reheating pain can be limited all together. be aware that that best way to reheat is while floating in a large tub while the water gradually is warmed up from about 50 degrees to about 104 degrees. reheating in a sauna is not that good, and the pain can be drawn out and last much longer if one doesn't do the reaheting the right way. I have seen icebathing rookies panick in the reheating part that is why we limit new comers to 15 minutes in the cold water so that they will get to experience gradually the strong reactions that the body goes through during the reheating. Once you have experienced the strong reactions, the pain and the almost fainting, thern you can gradually improve your own personally record, and you will know that you will survive and that the pain only lasts a few minutes. And you will know not to reheat to fast. On the other hand: not reheating fast enough is bad too. I have seen several examples of frost damage because of too long exposure to subfreezing temperatures. We also have the problem that people with weak hearths might get hearth attacks in the reheating process. Wouldn't that be something: Bringing back a cryo patient only to have him die of a massive hearth attack because of improper reheating procedures. though pain killers and anesthesia might prevent the patient from feeling the pain, the body will still go through the massive fall in blood pressure during reheating or for that matter the increased inner blood pressure in the cool down part. This has to be taken into account before cryonics will work. E.g. before we can freeze live human beings and bring these back alive without any health damage. sincerely, trygve Bauge * Life Extension systems, Norw.Icebathing Club & Action 88/Residental Assoc. * at Hovseterv.88. For a licensed diskcopy of my Life Extension manual, send * $20+your address to Trygve Bauge, Apt.9029 Hovseterv.88, 0768 Oslo, Norway * http://www.PowerTech.No/~trygveb/ 011-47-22-14-8078 Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9976