20 Years of Cryo: What Changes When a Technology Becomes Part of the Practice?

The Details That Matter Every Day

Standing beside his Cryo 7 in the new A to Z News video, Dr. Cohen doesn’t focus on dramatic changes. Instead, he points to the kinds of refinements that become important when a device is routinely used in a busy dermatology practice: a small footprint, quiet operation, easy communication with patients during treatment, integration with laser adapters, and a focusing tip.

In his follow-up interview with A to Z News, he added another everyday detail: Cryo 7’s arm keeps the hose raised, while the filter is easier to access and clean.

“All of these new additions are really helpful,” he said, describing the raised hose and quieter airflow as “attributes that I appreciate every day.”

The quieter operation stands out in particular. Dr. Cohen notes that while Cryo 7 is running, he and the patient can continue to hear one another without raising their voices or switching the unit off—allowing communication to continue without interrupting the flow of the procedure.

And sometimes precision matters for a very practical reason. Asked about the focusing tip, Dr. Cohen said it can be particularly useful around areas such as the mouth or nose, helping avoid the sensation of the patient feeling as though they are “in a wind tunnel.”

Those details may sound modest in isolation. Viewed through the experience of someone who has worked with several generations of Cryo systems, however, they represent the kind of day-to-day refinements that can matter when skin cooling has become part of the treatment environment rather than an occasional add-on.

When Patient Comfort Becomes Personal

After nearly 20 years of using Cryo, Dr. Cohen has seen many situations in which cold-air cooling can help patients through a procedure by decreasing discomfort—and, as he points out, perhaps providing some degree of distraction as well.

But when we asked him to step back and consider what those years had taught him, one story came immediately to mind.

It involved his son.

When his son was three years old, he had a spider angioma on his cheekbone. Dr. Cohen remembers that it looked almost like “red lipstick from some old aunt kissing him.”

That resemblance created an unexpected problem.

At family gatherings and elsewhere, people would see the red spot, assume it was something sitting on the skin, lick a finger, and try to wipe it away.

During a particularly bad flu season, Dr. Cohen and his wife—a pediatrician—became understandably concerned about people repeatedly rubbing saliva on their young son’s face, particularly so close to his eye. They decided Dr. Cohen would treat the spider angioma with a pulsed-dye laser (PDL).

There was just one obstacle: after watching his father demonstrate the laser pulse on his own hand, the three-year-old was understandably apprehensive about what the treatment would feel like.

His hesitation made something Dr. Cohen has discussed throughout his years of using Cryo very concrete: sometimes managing discomfort begins before the first treatment pulse is ever delivered. A procedure may be clinically straightforward, but the anticipated sensation can still loom large for the person receiving it.

So Dr. Cohen tried a different demonstration.

Using very low settings, he showed his son on the boy’s own hand how the Zimmer MedizinSystems chiller changed the sensation associated with the laser pulse.

That made the difference.

His son agreed to let his father “zap the red spot on his cheek.”

Fortunately, one pulse was all it took.

It is a small, personal story, but it captures something larger about the role that skin cooling has played throughout Dr. Cohen’s practice: treatment comfort isn’t an abstraction. Sometimes it can be the difference between apprehension and a patient feeling comfortable enough to proceed.

And on this particular occasion, the patient happened to be his own three-year-old son.

Not a Launch-Day Endorsement

Dr. Cohen’s history with Zimmer MedizinSystems Cryo long predates the Cryo 7.

In our 2022 A to Z News feature, he detailed using Cryo with non-ablative laser treatments, including IPL, BBL, and Vbeam; fractional thulium treatments such as Moxi^®; Halo; fractional CO2; fractional and full-field erbium; RF microneedling; PRP injections; and other procedures. He also described using cooling in combination with other approaches to discomfort management for more intensive resurfacing procedures.

He described the impact on his practice in straightforward terms:

“This really helps manage discomfort for our patients.”

That same 2022 interview documented just how established the technology already was at AboutSkin. Dr. Cohen said the first system he purchased in 2006 was still operating, while additional Zimmer MedizinSystems Cryo systems had been incorporated into the practice as its device mix and treatment offerings expanded.

A year later, Dr. Cohen spoke about Cryo again in an independent Aesthetic Guide editorial, describing his Cryo devices as “a key adjunct to many procedures in my office over the past two decades.”

The article described his use of the technology for skin cooling in the context of pain mitigation and minimizing thermal injury during laser treatments. Dr. Cohen also emphasized the durability of his existing systems and said subsequent generations had continued to improve in settings and customizability.

Now, in 2026, the pattern continues.

“I continue to use Zimmer [MedizinSystems] Cryo systems in my practice for many, many aesthetic procedures,” Dr. Cohen told A to Z News, specifically mentioning non-ablative fractional laser procedures and PRP scalp injections.

His current use extends beyond the treatment itself. He says patients may also remain with the Cryo systems afterward, including following non-ablative procedures and ablative laser resurfacing.

What makes that history notable is its continuity.

These comments are not tied to one product launch, one generation of equipment, or a single moment in Dr. Cohen’s career. Across roughly 20 years, as laser technologies and aesthetic procedures have evolved around him, he has continued using cold-air skin cooling, adding systems, and speaking publicly about the role Cryo plays in helping his patients through procedures.

None of Dr. Cohen’s comments to Zimmer MedizinSystems for these features were compensated. They reflect the experience of a physician who has continued choosing, using, and adding the technology over many years.

What Changes—and What Doesn’t

Cryo 7 is quiet, compact, and easy to integrate into the treatment room. But the larger story isn’t simply about what has changed from one generation to the next.

It is about what has remained constant.

Twenty years later, Dr. Cohen is still using skin cooling to address one of the most basic realities of procedural dermatology: patients have to get through the procedure.

From a three-year-old facing a single pulsed-dye laser pulse to patients undergoing today’s laser and energy-based skin rejuvenation treatments, RF microneedling, and injections, helping make that experience more tolerable remains part of the job.

The model numbers have changed. The role Cryo plays in his practice has endured.

Related A to Z News Articles:

Dr. Joel L. Cohen on Cryo as an Integral Part of Pain Management for Dermatological Procedures

Dr. Joel Cohen discusses procedure pain minimization with Cryo. "We have Zimmer [MedizinSystems] Chillers and this is really an integral part of how we manage patients’ discomfort for many of the procedures we do.” VIDEO+ARTICLE+Q&A ...

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The Aesthetic Guide: “Cooling Device Minimizes Pain, Increases Patient Satisfaction”

A new article was published in the January/February, 2023 issue of The Aesthetic Guide. Cosmetic surgeon, Dr. Monika Kiripolsky, Dermatologist, Dr. Joel Cohen, and Yan Duan, FNP, discuss how Cryo by Zimmer MedizinSystems helps increase patient comfort, while reducing procedural risks ...

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