Pain from a serious car accident leads Wichita businessman to help others who suffer

Matt Magnuson was sitting at a light at 21st and Rock Road four years ago when his life profoundly changed.

At the time, he was a marathon runner who had lost 92 pounds through running and healthy eating.

“Becoming a runner was a passion of mine,” Magnuson said.

Then, he said, a drunk driver hit his car from behind, and doctors told him he would never run marathons again.

“I severely injured my back.”

That’s when he discovered cryotherapy, a cold treatment that helped him so much that he decided to open his own cryotherapy center, iCryo Recovery & Wellness.

The business will open in late fall at 2616 N. Maize Road where Pepperjax used to be.

Cryotherapy is a cooled chamber where a person stands for three minutes, usually wearing undergarments, gloves, socks and slippers.

There are different levels of treatment, but Magnuson said essentially the cold from the chamber produces a fight or flight response that causes blood to rush to a person’s core to protect organs. He said it reoxygenates a person’s blood and helps reduce inflammation.

Magnuson said he used cryotherapy three or four times a week after his accident. Though he said he immediately noticed it helping, it took him 32 months to fully recover.

Magnuson, who has run call centers for companies such as Cox Communications and Extended Stay America (where he still works), shares his personal story through a blog at www.injuredbeast.com.

While cryotherapy helped Magnuson with pain, he said he saw other benefits, such post-workout recovery and improved sleep.

He said he wanted to start iCryo “just because I believe in the product so much for so many different reasons.”

The business will offer other services as well.

“Cryotherapy is our flagship product,” Magnuson said, but “we’re really a wellness center.”

There will be compression therapy, infrared saunas “as well as a few more spalike services.”

There will be cryo facials and body sculpting.

The business also will have registered nurses who provide IV drips with vitamin supplements to boost immunity, energy and hydration among other things.

Prices for services vary, and there will be a range of packages for cryotherapy, including unlimited visits for about $200 a month.

The business won’t take insurance, but some HSA and FSA plans allow people to use debit cards from those plans for some services.

Magnuson said he chose to open on the west side since a similar business doesn’t already exist there, but he’d like to open another three sites around the Wichita area within the next five years.

In addition to helping people in pain, Magnuson said he sees iCryo as a place to help athletes as well. He offers his own experience as proof.

“Not only am I running marathons again, I’m actually running ultramarathons.”

He ran a 50-mile race a couple of months ago and is running a 100K — 62 miles — next month. Magnuson also is training for a 100-mile race next year.

“I wouldn’t have been able to do it without cryotherapy.”

This story was originally published September 15, 2021 at 11:03 AM.