♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the Internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- Together we are the most famous physical therapists
on the Internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Well, let's talk about one of our favorite topics
in Minnesota and Wisconsin, cold weather.
- Well, when it gets to be November,
things start to come, and things start to get-
- 18 degrees, this morning when I was driving.
- Wow, and yesterday I was outside,
it was about 30 degrees,
but 30 mile an hour wind gusts,
- Oh! Brutal. - which equals
about zero degree windshield factors.
So anyways, as we, both Bob and I,
we're at that 60 age. - Right.
- 60 years old age,
you start to respect the cold weather a little differently
than when you're 30 years old.
And we find that, how do we make things better,
especially if you get arthritis.
- Right.
- And I do have some of those symptoms in my hand
where, get up in the morning,
I've got it helped out now,
but to make a full fist, it's stiff, and it hurts.
- Right.
- And after you get things moving, it's good.
So, when you have arthritis, particularly associated
with cold, you want to keep moving.
- Right.
- So you want to get your walking in,
you want to have a stationary bike if you're inside,
it's too cold to walk outside,
or just some exercises that you can do outside.
But the easier thing,
which a lot of us tend to gravitate to,
it's human nature.
- Right.
- Do something a little easier, put some heat on it.
And if that's what you do,
we're gonna go through some really nice, convenient things.
- We've got some good options.
- Good options.
And we're gonna to start out with-
- Let's go with the best one, Brad.
- Right.
- Let's start with the best one.
- Yeah, so, if you do like heat,
and hot packs control that joint pain,
make you feel better,
get things moving better
'cause sometimes you can heat up things,
heat the joint up, and then do your exercises.
- Right, that's a good way to go about that.
- Exactly, right.
So, this is,
Bob and I have done a lot with hot packs
over the, 25, 30 years of being a therapist.
- [Bob] 30-some years for me.
- Well, yeah, well-
- It's almost 40. (laughs)
- Yeah, I forgot about 25,
but we found that this hot pack is
by far the most effective.
- It's kind of a heating system,
I would call. - Right, it is,
and it's called, it's made by Thermotex,
this is called the, what's this-
- Far infrared heating.
- No, the model.
- Oh, platinum.
- The platinum model,
and the reason it is so good,
one reason, it's built extremely well.
It's got a heavy duty cord.
Everything on it is made for hospital use.
- Almost commercial use.
- Exactly right.
But what makes this one of the best ones out there is,
Bob said, far infrared.
- Yes.
- So if you have a regular hot pack,
or electric heating pad, it's gonna cost you 30, $40
and it's gonna feel good,
and it's gonna heat up skin deep at the most.
- This is the difference.
So you have to pay attention,
because it will go like a millimeter in depth.
- Right.
- Whereas this goes, like 50 times more.
- Right, it's 2.36 inches,
I always forget the millimeters,
but it's gonna go over two inches,
over two and 1/4 inches
where it's gonna heat up.
And the other thing nice about it is
it's only one temperature range, and it's therapeutic.
Actually the temperature that they specifically made,
this is 108 to 116 degrees Fahrenheit,
and that's a therapeutic range,
it's not gonna get hotter than that,
it's not gonna burn your skin.
You should have one layer of clothing on,
but like I've used this with a thick layer of clothing
with this T-shirt, and I had a pullover hoodie-
- And it still works.
- Yeah. 'Cause I had cold.
- It goes right through.
- I wanted to heat up my chest a little bit.
- Sure. - I wanted to see how it work.
So I put it just like this,
and now it does take a little bit longer, took
about between five and 10 minutes.
- I was gonna say.
- I felt that warmth heat go right through
that pullover hoodie, which was thick cotton,
and then this shirt,
and then you're gonna get that warmth.
So you don't have to adjust so much.
- For ladies in your life, I gotta to tell you,
it's gonna to help you with that time of the month.
I mean, it really does. - Oh right, yeah.
The menstrual cycle.
- My daughter, my wife. - Cramps.
- Oh my gosh, it made a big difference.
- Sure.
- I thought they were joking
when they said it would do that.
- Right, that's just a sidebar.
Now, if you do have joints specifically,
the beauty about this is you can use it pretty much
on your whole body, except for your neck.
It's hard to- - Position.
- Position around your neck.
It'll go around your knees, around your ankle. Okay.
It'll go on the hip.
- Now think about too, when it's around the knee,
it's actually hitting it for both sides,
so it's probably going all the way through the joint.
- Right, yeah.
- I mean, 2.36 inches this way, 2.36 inches this way.
- Right.
There's three panels,
and each one, so you're wrapping around,
like Bob says, you're getting it from the top,
and both sides.
- I would say, Brad, probably if I'm being so bold-
- Bold.
- I mean, for both of us,
we probably use it on our back more than anything.
We leave it in our chair.
I flip it on when I'm think I'm going to be using it.
- Yup.
- And, in about five, 10 minutes it's ready to go.
And I just sit on there the entire time I'm watching TV
because it's therapeutic,
you don't have to worry about burning yourself,
and it's gonna to put my back in the best position.
- Yeah, and the energy it takes, electrical energy, is
about a third or less
of what a regular heating pad is,
so it's not gonna throw your electric bill.
- Yeah in fact, at Thermotex,
they actually have one in their lobby
that they've had for 16 years, maybe it's 20 years by now.
'Cause they told us this story like years ago.
- And they leave it on all the time.
- They leave it on.
- And people can come in and sit and feel it.
- Right.
- So it's not just hanging on the wall.
- Exactly.
- It's being used for long and they were built well.
Let's see, was there anything else
I wanted to mention about,
so they are expensive,
but they have- - They are pricey.
- They do have these benefits
that you're not gonna get
from a regular hot pack - Regular heat pad, right.
- Now, like I said,
we're gonna go on,
and we're gonna show you some other things
that don't cost so much and you can do right at home.
You won't get the depth of the heat, and those things,
but they're still gonna be helpful,
and you're gonna feel good.
- Yes.
- Especially in those winter months.
- Should we talk about a regular heating pad, Brad,
or hot pack?
- Well, we mentioned the heating pad, they're fine,
they turn in, they each have three temperatures.
Big thing about them is,
if you're putting one on your back,
and you lean into it, and you turn it on high,
and you only have like one layer of like a T-shirt,
like this, a thin kind of T-shirt,
and you fall asleep,
you could burn your skin, - Burn, baby, burn.
- Especially if you're elderly, and you have fragile skin.
We've both had patients that came in.
- Oh God no.
- They fell asleep with their hot pack on,
on the high setting,
and burned their skin.
- Unfortunately, I had a patient
who we had put a heating pad, a hot pack around his knee.
And I kept checking with him every few minutes.
And he goes, "No, no, it's fine, no, no, it's fine."
And in the end we did end up burning him.
And he goes, "It was my fault,
I kept telling you it was fine, it was fine."
It wasn't, it was burning.
- Well that's even particularly,
if you do have like neuropathy, or you had a stroke.
- Decreased sensation.
- Yup, you don't feel heat,
some people just don't feel that,
but it's, you know, you leave it on, you fall asleep,
and then it will burn without even feeling that sensation,
so that's a big caution with these regular electric ones.
- And if you lean on it, or lay on it,
or lie on it,
- Right. Whatever!
- It's gonna even break down sooner, the skin.
- Yep, because of the pressure.
- Pressure, right.
- The sheer forces in that type thing,
when you're moving around.
The other thing that is a really nice benefit,
if you use a gel pack that is made to heat up.
Now this one you can see it says Hot & Cold,
this one's by iReliev, we do like their products.
But you can take this, make sure you read the instructions,
put it in the microwave for so many seconds, pull it out,
it'll be warm.
And then you can put that,
if it was my knee, you know, put that around your knee,
and they're gel, so they conform to the body part,
which is nice.
And it just cools off,
it's not gonna get hotter for, you know.
- Exactly.
- It'll last, you know,
you'll probably get 10 to 15 minutes of warmth out of it,
nice benefit.
We've had other things.
I've had people take a towel, get it wet,
squeeze the water out of it, put it into-
- Microwave?
- Yeah, in the Ziploc bag
- Oh, sure. - so it doesn't get wet
on your clothing.
Put it in the microwave.
- Rice.
- Yeah, rice in a sock.
Fill it up with a...
These are, the rice and the towel thing,
they don't work, they work okay.
- They work okay,
they don't get that warm. - Considering they don't have
to pay anything for it,
it's better than nothing.
If you get good relief from that,
then you wanna probably move up when you can afford it.
- We liked the rice, that it was was moldable.
- Right, but forms around particularly your neck.
- Yeah, but it didn't get that warm.
- Yeah. Yeah.
So you put rice in a sock, tie the end off,
put it in your microwave.
And it takes a while to heat up rice.
- Yes it does.
You know, you're not gonna leave it in for 30 seconds,
but you got to monitor it.
You don't want to overcook it.
- It smells like it's ready to eat.
(Brad laughs)
let me tell ya.
- Yeah, so so rice is probably not the best thing,
but we've had patients use it, and be happy with it.
And of course you can always have a warm bath.
- Right.
- Obviously, you know, you can stay in a bath so long.
Sometimes people that have arthritic problems
with their knees and hips are not that mobile.
So getting in and out of a bath is
a good potential for a fall.
So we've had a lot of people breaking bones
in the bathroom, getting in and out of the tub.
So, a big red flag there.
- Good time to move the joints is
when you're in the water.
- Yup.
And just a hot shower, you know,
it's temporary,
obviously you're not gonna be in a shower for, well,
you could be in for 20 minutes, I suppose,
but that's a lot of water.
- You didn't mention, like moving to Arizona or Florida.
- Oh yeah. (both laugh)
That's a good point, let's consider that.
But you know, if you can afford that,
you can probably afford a far infrared.
- Yeah, there we go.
Thanks for watching.
- Take care.