♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks. Brad Heineck, Physical Therapist.
- Mike Kenitz, PT Assistant.
- And Bob unfortunately is not here today.
He's taken a hiatus, he's taken a sabbatical.
He's not here,
but Mike is going to do an outstanding job.
And who knows? You might even take over his job.
(Mike blows raspberry) (Brad laughs)
Anyways, we are going to talk today
about the dangers of plug-in hot pads, things you must know.
Now, Bob, I, Mike, as physical therapists
have been using hot pads in the clinic with patients
as long as we've been treating.
They work very effectively,
but there are some dangers that we know,
cause that's what we work with.
And you will want to know if you have these
or if you want to, you know, work with a plug in hot pad.
So keeping that in mind, we are actually doing a giveaway.
- We are. Of the Thermotex Far Infrared hot pad.
- Right.
So it fits right into this whole video, if you will.
- Perfectly.
And that's actually probably the superior type of hot pad,
compared to this.
- Yeah. We're going to talk about the technical differences
and what the difference is,
buying a typical conduction hot pad or the far infrared.
We'll get to that in a little bit.
So shall we continue on?
- Yes.
- Are you going to talk during this video?
- Maybe. (Brad chuckles)
I may babble on so much that I won't give him a chance.
So first of all, why heat works?
You really want to increase the circulation.
You put your hot pack around the injured area
and it'll allow the muscle to relax.
It can increase the circulation when... (stammers)
You want to take while I'm stuck here?
- Increases the blood flow to the area.
Your blood carries all your nutrients,
helps the healing process occur faster.
- And the oxygen, of course.
- Yes. - Right.
And you get rid of the waste products, the carbon dioxide,
the lactic acid, whatever else may be there
that needs to get back.
- And it just feels really nice.
- Yeah, it does.
- Especially during winter.
- It's one of those things as a therapist, it's nice to say,
"We'll put your hot pack on now."
And the patient says, "Oh, thank you."
(Mike chuckles)
You become, you know,
it's a good rapport builder right there,
versus a cold pack.
Sometimes they do not want those.
- They don't like you. They make faces at you.
- Yeah. So let's talk about this.
We've got two different kinds of hot packs here.
We've got the plugin conduction,
this is your standard hot pack.
You can go to, you know,
they've been around for years and years and years.
- Find them anywhere.
- Yeah, they don't cost too much.
They're about $30 or $40.
Obviously the plugin,
they, oftentimes have three to four temperature settings.
In order for these to work, they have to,
they are conduction hot pads.
So the electric electricity flows through them.
There's resistance in there. That creates heat.
And that heat gets to your body through contact.
If you're going to heat up your leg,
you have to have it touching your leg
in order for it to produce.
- To actually work. - Right.
- You can use either side with this one.
The far infrared, you can actually only use one side,
the way that hot pack's set up.
- So with the far infrared, you only can use one side.
It'll actually, instead of conduction, it uses light rays,
far infrared light rays.
And it works like the sun,
or if you're by a fire, you can feel the heat from a fire.
That's the same principle.
So if I'm going to heat up my leg here,
I'm going to put this down like this. I can wrap it around.
I've got elastic straps to help it on there.
And they work really nice.
Now, here is the biggest difference, aside from the cost,
but there's a reason why this one costs more.
The depth the heat will penetrate
from a conduction hot pack like that is...
- One eighth inch.
- Right. One eighth inch versus 2.36 inches.
So much deeper with this.
So if you've put it on your leg like this,
and we've got three panels here, I'm going to put it on.
It's going to go 2.36 inches in this direction and this way.
And that's going to really get deep into the muscle.
It's going to get into the joint, get that synovial fluid,
the blood circulating at a depth
that that will not compare to.
So that's the big difference.
- I should say. I've used both.
Well, obviously you have two.
And that one, it gets nice and warm,
but it doesn't get overly hot.
Like I've never had an issue where it's feels super hot
or hot superficially where this one,
I've had had that issue before.
- And which brought me up to the question,
how hot do these get?
Well, I looked it up and Thermotex,
they have a nice website,
and they said, this gets up to 100
and I think 16 or 17 degrees, is what they had.
This one, I didn't know.
And this says four different temperature settings.
So what I did is I took a thermometer,
made for putting in your meat to see how hot your meat is.
And I thought, well, I'll use-
- Did you clean it off before you did that?
- Of course I did!
- Okay, just checking.
- As a matter of fact,
I even tested it to make sure it's accurate by,
I cleaned it off, put it under my tongue.
And then I took my oral thermometer,
that's made for putting under your tongue,
and one, the difference was 0.1 degree Fahrenheit,
so I felt that it was, you know, going to work out well.
- These scientific methods at Bob and Brad.
(Brad chuckles)
- Whatever, I'm using the same thermometer there.
This is a digital thermometer.
- Still works the same.
- Now let's,
what I did with this one,
I folded it over, I put it on the table.
I put the thermometer,
which is about four or five inches long,
the needle, in there.
And I left it there for five minutes
until the temperature stabilized.
- Yep and it has four settings on here, just FYI.
- And this only has on/off.
So I did the same thing with this,
put it over there, and I waited longer.
I went 15 minutes on this
because far infrared heats up slower.
Quite a bit slower.
But it goes quite a bit deeper.
So you leave this on longer than you would that one.
So here are the temperatures. This is interesting.
I thought it was interesting.
For the lowest setting, that one went to...
- 110 degrees.
- The next setting up.
- Well, that was warm.
Low was 124 degrees. - Right.
- Medium was 134 and high was 145 degrees.
And this has a 15 to 20 minute time limit.
- Now, and that's what they recommend.
That has an automatic shutoff at two hours.
- Oh.
- Now, we're going to talk about precautions.
Now you can start to see why maybe you can get burned.
You can burn your skin with these temperatures
if they're not used properly.
Now, the Thermotex on my thermometer
went to 119 degrees and it leveled off there.
Again, the factory said 116
and it might be just that my meat thermometer
was off a few degrees.
Either way,
the temperature between the two is quite different
because we had the same thermometer
and we had 145 to 119.
- Yeah. It's a big difference still.
- Yeah. - All right.
- Precautions you should follow
for either of these is never put them directly on your skin.
You should always try to have one layer of clothing
and be cautious if you have very fragile
or thin skin.
- Right.
I would say if you just have one layer
and you have an elderly person
or with fragile skin, actually take a towel,
put it over, and then put the hot pack on.
- And it's way different if it's laying on top
or you're laying on it.
The amount of pressure is going to intensify,
so you're going to need more layers if you're on it.
- Right. Not so much with the far infrared,
but definitely with the standard electric conduction heater.
Number two, never use near your eyes,
or there's really no reason to use it around your head.
(Mike laughs) I wouldn't recommend-
Why?! Why, Mike?
- That's cold.
- Yeah, I guess. He's always playing.
You know, that's a problem I have with this guy,
but one way or another, he's still working out good.
- Like I said earlier, never use it directly on frail skin.
We've had that with elderly patients before.
Be very cautious,
they can blister and burn a lot easier
or even start weeping. So...
- Right.
That's big because when you have a burn from a hot pack,
they go deep and they don't heal quickly.
Particularly with fragile skin.
Never use on abdominal area if pregnant,
particularly with the far infrared.
Just stay away from it.
- I'm not pregnant. I'm fine.
(Brad chuckles)
- Another time.
- Never on skin with poor sensation.
So if you had a stroke, you have neuropathy of sorts,
if you can't have good sensation in the area,
you should probably not use it on there
because again, you can leave it on too long,
get hotter than you think, lead to burns.
- Right.
Again, the biggest thing is falling asleep.
You do not want to fall asleep with these on,
that can cause a burn.
And now this one does not get near as hot,
but if you fall asleep with this one,
and you have frail skin,
and you put it either directly on your skin
or on the thin, you know,
there's a possibility you could have some problems with it.
So be safe, always use some caution
- Yeah, you're more prone to get burned on
like a shallow skin area, not a big muscle belly.
So just keep that in mind.
- Yeah, exactly.
Like over the knee cap where you have skin
and bone directly underneath,
that would be a definite hotspot.
So again, people who cannot communicate well.
Let's say someone had a stroke
or there's some cognitive issues
and it's hard to get very distinct.
Is this too hot?
And if they cannot come up with a very yes or no,
it's not a good person to use a warm pack on.
- Yeah, you never know if it's going to get too hot
because the burn doesn't always appear right away.
- Exactly.
- Sometimes it takes a day to have that happen.
And never use by water.
- Right.
And that's pretty obvious, that's for both of them.
- Yeah. There are some other precautions,
like don't have metal with it.
They don't suggest using it by oxygen.
That's basically about it.
- Length of time, you would typically use these?
These, we would go 15, 20 minutes max in the clinic.
Again, continuing to ask the patient
or let them know,
if it feels too warm,
put another layer of toweling or some cloth between it.
- And you can use it numerous times a day
if you want to do it longer, just take breaks from it.
Don't use it for like two hours nonstop.
- Exactly right.
Now with this, it takes longer to heat up,
but you can actually put more layers of cloth
and it'll go right through the cloth anyways,
It's still going to get you 2.36 inches, minus the cloth.
So put that on.
And I've tried that with winter clothing on
and I put it on that to test it.
Takes about 5 to 10 minutes before you feel the heat,
but it gets in there and it's still gonna get deep.
Then the other thing is just a hygiene issue.
Use cloth between the skin and this so that if you,
that's why in the clinic,
we don't share one patient to the other
and do it direct on skin.
- I mean, if you have your own at home, it's fine.
- Right.
- Also this one from...Walgreens?
- Yeah. It's a Walgreens one. Yep.
- It actually comes with all precautions on the back
in case you're curious.
- I needed my reading glasses on, but yeah,
they're covering all the ones we had.
Plus a few other ones I think were pretty obvious.
So again, this the far infrared,
45 minutes is what they recommend.
I'll be honest with you.
I've had this on my back at home,
it's really great in winter time,
I sit like this and I've fallen asleep on it,
but I have clothing.
I've never had any problem with skin burning,
but we don't recommend that, naturally.
- If you can't afford it, it's the give-away.
So go sign up on Facebook or on our website.
- Right. Absolutely.
And if you just do go through our website,
go through the link, you'll get, I think, $30 off the price.
- Yeah, you'll get a discount.
- A discount through us.
Through Bob and Brad,
because we're trying to help you out in any way that we can.
So once again, continue on with this winter weather,
stay warm, healthy, and be careful.
- I think it fixed my broken heart.
- I don't know if it's gonna.
We forgot to say that.
We have to say it.
- Well, I just did.
- We can fix just about anything...
- Except for...
- A broken heart.
And these, we don't have any data yet
that it's going to do the trick.
- I'll- - No,
there's nobody watching by now.
(Mike laughs)
By now, everyone's shut off, whatever.
- Yeah, pretty much.
- Thank you if you are watching.