♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi, folks. I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we're the most famous physical therapists
on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Brad!
Today we wanted to talk about the absolute best cold pack
that you can make yourself, do it yourself.
We think it's better than gel packs, right?
- Oh, yeah. And there's a good reason for it.
Number one, they're easier to make,
they're cheaper, and they work better.
- Right.
- The big three things, you know?
- Yeah, that's right.
Anytime you can talk about less expensive with us,
we're happy.
You put a smile on our face.
- Especially when it works better.
- By the way, Brad, in case you haven't noticed,
a couple people wandered in.
- There are two more people out there.
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We gave away a couple things this week, Brad,
and maybe two things this week.
- Right. And not only like us because of that,
'cause we got good information.
And the pain-free thing you mentioned,
that's what we're talking about here with the cold pack.
- Good segue. I like that. - Exactly.
- (indistinct) English class, you know.
Okay, so, we should get into it.
- Yeah.
- Cold pack, you know.
You need a cold pack. You sprained your ankle,
twisted your knee, got a pulled muscle, backache,
cold packs often always are used in that first 48 hours.
What do you do?
If you don't have one at home, what are you gonna do?
Run down to the store and spend 15, 20 dollars on one?
Or make one?
- And it's possible you might
have these ingredients at home.
- Very possible. As a matter of fact,
we're gonna start out with the two simplest ways to do it.
All you need is tap water,
heavy-duty freezer bag with the Ziploc.
- Gotta be a heavy-duty one.
- Yup. It should be.
If you just use a Ziploc bag,
more chance of it busting loose.
- It's gonna crack, or...
- Right. Bust loose after time.
I mean, you can if you want to.
Okay, so.
- So one way, is what you're saying, is just water?
- No.
- Oh.
- If you just use water,
it's gonna turn into an ice block, Bob.
- Sure.
- Then you try to put an ice block on your shoulder.
It'd be like taking this, this freezer pack.
You buy it downtown for your cooler for picnics
and you put it on there.
- Doesn't really conform, does it?
- I've had patients use these at home,
and I say, oh no.
You can use that, but what we have is much better,
and they're cheaper.
- We want something that's gonna envelope your body.
- Exactly. No matter where it is.
- Right.
- So get yourself a gallon freezer bag.
You can use a quart one if you want a small one,
that's fine.
A cup to measure water, right out of the tap.
- Gotcha.
- And then you either use salt,
just regular old baking salt,
you know, that comes in, salt in your food.
- Sure.
- Or you can use rubbing alcohol.
- Okay. - Okay?
- I didn't know you could use salt.
- Oh, yeah.
- This is new to me! - Well, Bob.
- Wow. All right.
- [Lonnie] (indistinct) Measurement?
- Well, we're getting to that, Lonnie.
Lonnie brought up a good point. What is the ratio?
- Okay.
- Okay, with rubbing alcohol.
I didn't want to make it in front of everyone here
because I didn't think it was necessary to make a mess,
but have someone hold the bag open.
You can do it by yourself.
Put one cup of water, one,
two,
three,
four cups of water.
- Four cups of water.
- One cup of rubbing alcohol. Put it in there.
- So, four to one.
- Right. Get the air out.
You gotta kind of go like this, this, and get the air out,
and zip it shut.
And then, mix it up a little bit so it all dilutes.
And then you take another bag and put it in another bag,
so you double bag it, okay?
And then you put it in the freezer nice and flat
and leave it overnight or for a few hours.
And then you'll have a slush.
These are moldable cold packs.
- Sure.
I've seen these, and I mean, they work really well.
- They feel colder than the gel packs.
(crosstalk)
I don't know if they are, but they feel colder.
I've used these. My mother used them.
My patients use them.
I've been giving this recipe out for about 15 years now,
and everyone like them.
- It's an old family Heineck recipe.
Heineck family recipe. And here it is!
- This is one I made last night.
Now, this one I used salt. Table salt.
- Oh, you did?
- Yes. The ratio is 12 parts of water to one part of salt.
So if you're gonna use,
I used a half a cup of salt, and then six cups.
So it was a ratio, 12 to one. I did the same thing.
- Let me repeat that.
- Say no more.
- Half a cup of salt. 12 cups of water.
- No. 12 to one.
I used a half a cup of salt, so six cups of water.
- Oh, see. I already wasn't paying attention.
- So, yes. If I used a -
- Sure, gotcha.
So six cups of water versus one half cup of salt.
- And you'll get a bag that looks just like this.
- Let me feel that.
- Now, it depends on the makeup of your water.
You know, if you're having (crosstalk) water,
you got a lot of iron in it,
or whatever makeup is your water,
you may have to add a little more water
or a little less salt.
- I like the blue color on there.
This is just like on Breaking Bad, the blue meth?
That was the good stuff, you know.
- Oh, really?
- Yeah.
- Okay, so here we go.
Now, what I did, I even put the date that I made it,
and I put what's in there,
so I know when I bring it out of the freezer.
In case someone brings it out and they say, Oh, what's this?
- Now, am I right in saying, Brad,
that if you use the alcohol,
it's a little more gelly or not?
- No. - It's about the same?
- Depends on the ratio.
- Okay.
- I've made these already, it came out,
and it's too hard.
- Oh, really?
- Yeah, so then I melt it, put a little more salt
or a little more rubbing alcohol in it.
And then you'll get the right consistency.
But the ratios I've given almost always work.
- What's nice about the salt and water, I mean,
almost everybody's got that at home,
so it's just a matter of if you have the bags.
- Exactly. Exactly.
(crosstalk)
Double bag it.
Actually, I did triple-bag one of mine.
It depends on, you know...
The nice thing about salt water versus gel packs,
every one is gonna break.
Gel packs that you buy or you make,
no matter what, it's gonna break.
- They're eventually gonna break,
and they're gonna be a mess.
- Right. Matter of fact, I just used one.
I was in my car driving with a gel pack behind my back.
Felt great.
And I got off it, and it broke,
and there was gel stuff all over my back.
- Oh, geez.
- It washed off pretty good, though,
so I was lucky about it.
But if these break, you've got nothing but water.
- Sure.
- Little salt, and it's gonna evaporate.
There's gonna be no issue.
Now, this is the bonus part.
If you don't want to do that, you want to make a cold pack
for elbow, knee, any part of your body, real fast.
Take a cup, either Styrofoam or paper.
Go ahead, Bob, you got one.
And there you go. Freeze it.
That's water, but it's hard.
(knocking on cups)
Ice, okay?
Peel off, go ahead, Bob. Peel it off.
Yeah, you can't do it. You gotta expose the ice.
- The upper part.
- Yup.
Okay. And then you can have some sharp edges.
Rub it a little bit.
- So you rub it with your palm.
- Now, a cold pack will take 15 to 20 minutes
is what's recommended to cool the body part down.
This? Five minutes.
- Oh, less than that.
I mean you can go five minutes,
but in two minutes it'll be cooled down.
- I always say five minutes.
It usually takes a minute to acclimate,
and after a couple minutes, Bob is right.
It's starting to go numb.
- Yeah. These are really good for smaller surfaces.
So like, you got tendonitis, elbow,
golfer's elbow, tennis elbow.
Really good for shoulders.
It works out really good for that.
I would say, even if you're having tendonitis of the knee,
works out really good for that,
because again, it's just gonna...
- Now, with this, you know with a cold pack,
you should put a piece of cloth, like this towel,
a thin towel, over the body part, and then the cold pack.
Because you don't want to frostbite your skin.
- Right. If you're going over clothing, you'll be fine.
- Right, exactly. Any kind of cloth, anything.
But with this, you don't have to do that,
because there's a layer of water,
so you'll never frostbite your skin.
- You probably want a towel underneath you,
because it does start to -
- It gets messy. That's what's going on here.
And after about a minute, so two minutes,
it starts to kind of snap, crackle, and pop on your skin.
It hurts.
But once it gets past that
and it goes numb, and then it's good.
- And you can usually tell by just taking
two fingers like this and it feels like one?
That means that it's adequately gotten cool.
- Exactly.
The other option is, Bob, a little more bonus here
if you don't want to go through all that.
These work. They're not as cold, but they still work good.
This is a sock, and I poured rice in it.
Uncooked rice. - Ricin?
- Rice. - Oh, rice.
- Rice. Like what you eat.
- Ricin is a poison.
- Yeah. Don't use that, use this.
Now, put this around your neck, Bob.
- Oh, that actually feels good.
- Yeah. And it's soft, and it's cushy.
You could go on a recliner.
It's limited as far as what you can, kind of limited.
- Yeah, it's not really, really cold, but it's cold.
- Right.
- And the bonus of this is, you can also heat it up.
- Right. In the microwave.
- In the microwave. We've used this actually.
My wife had an ear infection and she put it on her ear,
and it felt -
- A warm one.
- Yeah, a warm one.
- So rice with a sock is a great home remedy
that is very inexpensive.
- When did you cool this down?
- It was in the freezer all night long.
- Oh, okay. 'Cause it's still pretty cold.
- Yeah, I pulled it out. It's been in here for an hour,
so it's cooled down a little bit.
But they're kind of fun, you know? You can throw it over.
You can play catch with your kids with it.
And when you're done, you can make rice and eat it,
but I wouldn't do that.
- You can beat your partner with it.
- Yeah, be careful, Bob. Bob, Bob, why, Bob?
- Also, you forgot to mention the red Solo cup.
- Yeah, if you use a plastic cup like this red Solo cup -
- To freeze ice.
- They're really good for drinking out of,
but they're not good for this,
because you can't tear it loose.
So don't even go this route.
I just got that for the big no-no.
This is the no-no.
I can use a plastic cup that's available.
- Bad boy. Bad.
- You could try to cut it off,
but then you got a sharp edge.
It's just no good.
- All sorts of hazards.
- Keep these for drinking fluids.
- All right, Brad, I think we covered everything.
- Yeah, this is a wonderful thing,
because we always talk about using cold packs.
- Right.
- But we've got another video.
- We'll do another video of when you should use a cold pack
versus a hot pack.
- Right.
- We should do that soon. - Right.
- All right. - Next?
- Well, if you want...
- No, no, no.
- Thanks everybody for watching. (laughs)