Want to know when to use hot and cold therapy? Well, let's talk about it.
So generally when you're using hot and cold therapy,
there are some exceptions to the general rules. But I'm
just going to kind of talk to you about generally how you use the hot generally how you use the
cold and how I would use it in a setting. So we'll talk about hot therapy first. And today I'm going
to be using the Medvice reusable, hot and cold pack. And if you're interested in purchasing it,
you can click on the link up there. So starting off with hot or heat, it's important to know that
a lot of times even though they're called Hot packs, when you're doing hot therapy,
you really want to aim for warm, you don't want it to be so hot, where it's uncomfortable,
if you're trying to loosen up muscles are relaxed, you want it to be warm, to the touch. So not super
hot. And I think a lot of times people get confused with that they're like, you know,
I want it to be really, really hot, but you just want it to be warm. So it's a nice soothing
feeling. So when you're doing hot therapy, this is really to increase circulation, increased blood
flow to an area to help warm it up or make muscles more flexible. So I like to use hot therapy,
before you do stretches and exercises or before you're going out to do a workout or playing a
game because that will help loosen up muscles, especially if you have an injury. And sometimes
stretching is a little harder to do or a little more uncomfortable to do. So for example, if I had
a hamstring injury, and I had heated up my hot pack, I could just set it here and start loosening
up the area 15 to 20 minutes would be really good if you're going to go do something afterwards has
a nice warm up amount. But if you want to use it for something more chronic like arthritis,
you could have it on for a little bit longer with the heat again, you want to be more that warm than
hot. But so for heat, it could be anywhere from 15 minutes up to an hour of using it.
There are some precautions with heat therapy. So make sure you're talking to your doctor or
physical therapists have Is it okay to use some things like diabetes, because their circulation
issues sometimes that you don't want to use it for that ortho, like if you have a DVT or issue
of DVTs, the deep vein thrombosis, you definitely want to check before you use something like that.
And then even MS. A lot of times with MS, using heat actually kind of increases the symptoms. So
just make sure you know when you're using heat and when it's appropriate for you. So always make sure
you're checking before that. And so it's really nice because these kind of molded to the area. So
let's say I have some knee arthritis on kind of stuff, I want to loosen everything up, it's a nice
way to just kind of wrap it around if you want to. So that works really well,
especially with these gel packs, you want to be careful where it's warm and not hot. So I
always do recommend having a buffer in between either your clothing or a towel or something just
so you're not having that direct contact on there. So then, if you want to go into cold therapy,
you stick it in the freezer, and then you have it nice and cold for your gel pack.
So cold therapy is a little bit different, it can sometimes be used either or with heat therapy. But
in general, with cold therapy, this is more now to reduce the circulation or reduce the blood flow.
And the reason that you might want to do that is if you have swelling or inflammation, that cold
therapy will help kind of calm everything back down. It also a lot of times with cold therapy,
therapists will use it in a situation to reduce pain, because it kind of like for nerve pain
and stuff that will calm everything down. And then you're not feeling that that nerve pain,
or the pain from the swelling and inflammation for a while. So it kind of slows everything back down.
So generally, I would say this is what you do after your workout or after your stretches and
exercises, maybe you've gotten everything go in. And maybe your injury is just a little bit
irritated now and you've got some inflammation in it and you want to calm it back down. There's
a lot of research out there of should you calm back down that inflammation, you know,
inflammation is good, it's there for a reason. Well it is but if you have too much inflammation
that can cause scarring or adhesions in the tissue. And that can actually cause more damage
or imbalances in the muscle in the future. So you want to have that happy medium of sometimes
inflammation is okay, but too much inflammation is actually bad and can damage the tissue. So,
again, this is something to definitely talk to your doctor or physical therapist about,
you know, shoot is this right for me, should I use it. And again, with cold therapy, there also
are some precautions for it again, with things that if you have like poor circulation, you don't
want it to make it even more poor circulation with a cold therapy. So you know if you have again,
things like diabetes, this is something you really want to check with first because your circulations
already bad vascular disease, you know, you don't you don't want to slow things down when
they're already slowed down. So make sure you're checking with those things a little bit better.
With the ice, or cold therapy, you know, it can be ice, it can be cold, you definitely don't want
to do it directly on your skin. So you want to have that towel barrier or your clothes barrier.
The only exception would maybe be if you're doing an ice massage, and then you are doing it directly
the skin, but you're only doing it for a few minutes. Versus with a cold pack, you can go
up to 15 to 20 minutes, I usually say I really like more than 10 to 15. But once you go more into
20 minutes, then you're really slowing things down too much. And sometimes what can happen is
your body can go into protection mode, it actually thinks you're going into hyperthermia, and it will
start warming the area backup. So you're kind of being counterproductive. So I would say 10 to 15
minutes, 20 minutes at max, you don't really want to do too much more than that. But this is great,
especially if you have an immediate injury, like let's say, you know, I twisted my ankle
I was running or I stepped off a curb and and you see that immediate swelling, that's
good when you want to get that that cold therapy right in it right away. So you can also use it
for other things like arthritis or chronic pain issues. So once you go into that chronic stage,
it's really hot and cold is what you like the best. You know, it's not necessarily you need
it for this or you need it for this but when it's an acute like when it's just happen, that's when
okay, I've got the swelling and inflammation. I want the the ice on there or the cold on there to
start off with and then if I'm doing my stretches and exercises a week or so later than the heat
can kind of help loosen up those muscles and get them warmed up and get them going before you start
and then the cold is calm everything back down afterwards. I know Yeah. So that's when and how to
use hot and cold therapy. If you're interested in purchasing the Medvice Reusable Hot and cold pack,
click on the link up there. And remember, be safe, have fun, and I hope you feel better soon.