CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A therapy involving extremely cold temperatures is gaining popularity across the country. One man says it helped him improve his quality of life.

Ernie Remillard has two sons that love baseball. When his kids were growing up, he would work all day and spend the evening with them at the batting cages.

“It was for hours every night,” Remillard said. “We hardly missed a night actually.”

Remillard said he didn’t have the opportunity to play baseball as a child. He wanted his sons to have a bright future, and it paid off.

Both of his sons have played for the minor leagues, and one currently plays for the Charlotte Knights.

For decades, Remillard was so busy taking care of his family that he put his health and wellness second. One day his health finally caught up to him.

“I actually thought my wife would be wheeling me around in a wheelchair at one point,” Remillard said.

When he was younger, the vertebraes in his spine never properly formed, so doctors removed bone from his hip and put it in his spine. He didn’t have any pain or health issues until he hit the age of about 40.

“It just got worse and worse,” Remillard said. “I started getting ablations, where they burn the nerves so you can’t feel the pain.”

He said these treatments worked for a while, but eventually the benefits started to fade. He said exercising in a gym was unbearable because of the pain, but that all changed thanks to a treatment his wife begged him to try.

It’s called cryotherapy.

“Your body, when you walk in, is going to go into fight or flight mode,” Remillard said. “Your blood is going to rush to your core and reoxygenate. When you come out your body realizes it isn’t in fight or flight mode.”

He says once the body realizes this, the blood flows back throughout the body. Remillard did this therapy in combination with compression therapy.

“It would make my back feel a lot better,” Remillard said. “I would do legs and then hips afterward.”

Remiillard and his wife used to live in upstate New York, but a few months ago they left their lives there to be closer to their children in Charlotte. They decided to open up their own center called iCRYO in Charlotte.

“Cryotherapy actually helped me and it changed my life,” Remillard said.

It also gave him hope that he will be fully mobile when grandchildren come into the picture.

“I would like to throw the ball to my grandkids someday,” Remillard said. “That would be an awesome feeling.”

Atrium Health Sports Medicine Dr. Eric Warren said cryotherapy has a lot of short-term benefits.

“We know it can help the blood nerve response, so people feel less pain,” Warren said. “And less pain is good for people with arthritis or degenerative conditions. We also know it decreases inflammation, which is helpful in a lot of settings.”

He said it can also increase endorphins, which is why people feel mentally and physically better after the therapy. Warren adds it is not clear if there are long-term benefits from this therapy.

There are some people who should not participate, which include those with peripheral vascular disease, diabetic patients who have peripheral neuropathy and certain people with skin, heart or lung conditions.

Warren recommends patients talk with their local physician before starting cryotherapy.