- Hi, I'm Bob Schrupp, Physical Therapist.
- Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- And together we are the most famous physical therapist
on the internet.
- Well in our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Brad is nervous today, I don't know why.
Today, Brad, we're gonna talk about the paraffin wax
or hot wax. - Right.
- And this is unit that's very good
for hand pain or arthritis. - Right.
- And we're just gonna demonstrate how to use it.
Now, this unit here is more of a commercial model.
I looked it up it was $179. - Sure.
- I'm surprised how expensive it was,
but they do have units that you can buy
that are home units, basically, and I saw one
for 37.88.
- Couldn't remember that, could you?
- I could remember that, no, $37.
All right, let's go ahead and start, Brad.
- Alrighty. - First of,
why don't we just take a look inside, Nate?
- [Brad] This is nothing more than like
a little bathtub actually and you put paraffin wax
and you can put a little oil
in with it- - [Bob] Right.
- [Brad] They sell, it smells good and gives your skin
a little oil- - [Bob] Yeah.
- And it melts.
It's had a temperature that's a little warm to the touch,
but not too bad. - [Bob] Right,
and that's one thing you wanna make sure
that it is paraffin wax and is not canning wax
or candle wax. - [Brad] Right.
- The melting point of paraffin wax is
119 to 121 degrees. - Sure.
- You can scald your hand
at 140 degrees. - Sure.
- Paraffin, I mean,
canning wax or candle wax, that melt point is
150 to 170 degrees.
- Ouch.
- The point that it melts at, it's gonna be really hot
and you could burn yourself- - Right.
- So this is not something that you're gonna want to-
- Right, so buy the wax designated
for this purpose. - Right.
All right, Brad, let's go ahead and jump it in there.
- All right, okay,
so let's say my hand has been very painful from arthritis,
but it feels good to put warmth on it
that's a good indication I can use this,
is that correct, Bob? - [Bob] Right,
before you put it in there, Brad-
- [Brad] Yep.
- [Bob] You're gonna wanna make sure
you probably clean the hand. - [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] Make sure you don't have
any scars on it. - [Brad] You got it.
- [Bob] You wanna sanitize the hand-
- [Brad] Right. - [Bob] Because, you know,
you wanna make sure-
- [Brad] Keep your wax clean.
So I've already done that already
and I'm gonna put it in kind of slowly here,
you got that Nate?
And you can see there's a little skin on this,
but that's all right, and actually,
at first it's a little warm,
but it's feeling really good right now
and you don't have to leave it in very long.
- [Bob] Well, by that point too, you don't wanna have
your wedding ring on when you're going there,
I think everybody knows that.
- [Brad] I've got mine on, Bob.
- [Bob] Yeah, I know, but on this.
- [Brad] Oh, on that hand, yeah, okay.
So the drips quit dripping,
they're already like the little stalagmites or tights,
I don't know what the other (indistinct),
and just ready and dipping again and I usually go
about four or five dips with this.
- [Bob] Sounds good. - [Brad] And out,
leave it drip off, cool.
Sometimes you can blow eye, (blows)
that's fun.
You can do whatever you want with this kind of fun,
it really feels good.
- [Bob] We actually have one of these units at work,
of course, and a lot of the staff use it during the winter
as a moisturizer, they have dry skin, they do.
They use it every day. - [Brad] Yeah.
- [Bob] So it works really well for that,
but it really is a great one for arthritis
or hand pain- - [Brad] Right.
- [Bob] Because it's so all encompassing, you know,
you don't have to worry about trying to put a hot pack
or something on there, it really envelopes all the joints.
- [Brad] Yeah, just right in, I mean,
like you said, the hot pack, you only get the surface
of the fingers on the top and the bottom not in between.
- [Bob] Right. - All right,
so once you get that far, can you help me out?
You just take a clean, brand new plastic bag,
this happens to be just a regular garbage bag.
- We wish we could have found
a bigger one. - Yeah.
- [Bob] How are we gonna fit Brad's hand?
- [Brad] Yeah, put my whole body in there.
All right, we get it in there.
- [Bob] In other words, normally you could go
with a smaller bag.
- Yeah, just like that and then you take a towel
for a little insulated purposes and you put it in the towel
and you can use a blanket or whatever you have around
then you wanna insulate it and-
Boy, this is just-
- [Bob] And you can leave it on.
I saw 10 to 12 minutes,
but you can leave it on for 20 minutes if you want.
- [Brad] It doesn't-
- [Bob] There's no negative thing in-
- [Brad] Right. - [Bob] And it's going start
to cool down a little bit.
Did you get some wax on your hand?
- [Brad] Yeah, if you got black pants
and you get wax dripping on there, it comes right off
so it's not too bad.
- All right, Brad, why don't we show how it looks
when you take it off then.
You can take it off and put it back in here
or you can take it off and not put it back in there,
I mean, you could- - Take what off?
- The wax off. (laughs)
- I'm not gonna take advantage this feels good, Bob.
Okay, you know, I was gonna say one thing in the clinic
I've had people that had trauma to their hands
that got their hand crushed, bones broke,
in a cast for, you know, six, eight weeks
and they're so tight you can't move 'em
and then we'll use this as well.
All right, there we go.
- [Bob] And yeah, a lot of times
they could actually even do some of their exercises
with it on. - [Brad] Yep.
- [Bob] Even though it crack the wax a little bit,
but really not because it-
- See that Nate?
Yeah, so you can do that
you can see it's breaking loose from the skin
and this is a neatest thing
it just comes right off real slick.
This is one of those treatments as therapists
it's nice to do 'cause your patients love you,
they look forward to coming.
Or if you buy one for at home it's just a treat to do
and the wax it's completely off my skin.
There's a couple little flicks of it there
and you just put it back in there
and allow it to remelt and get back in for the next game.
- So this is again, paraffin wax,
give it a try if you have arthritis
and you want a daily treatment, you could do this
every 24 hours- - Right.
- And you'd be happy. - Yep, and again,
just moisturize those hands and fingers
so that, you know, you feel like you can really play cards
and deal those decks smoothly.
- Yeah, (indistinct).
- What are we gonna? - All right.
- Thank you. - Thanks a lot.