Hot v.s. Cold Therapy

By: Jen Fleming

Hot baths, hot pads, hot water bottles, heated blankets, the list goes on for heat therapy.  It’s relaxing; it’s soothing, makes us feel sleepy and gives us that overall warm fuzzy feeling.  Ice bags and cold packs, on the other hand, give a lot of people anxiety - and with good reason – some of us are so stressed and exhausted by our lives we feel like we can’t get warm.  


The idea of a cold pack actually makes some people feel afraid; like we may never get warm again.  And because of this fear, we put heat pads on everything, even injuries. But a heat pad is far from a catch all solution, and in many instances can increase the problem!  Below are the do’s and don’t of hot and cold therapies so you can use them properly to treat aches and pains at home.

Hot Therapy Do…

    • Take a hot bath at the end of a long day of physical activity or inactivity. The         heat from the tub willrelax your muscles and bring blood to thesurface layers        of skin, thus cleansing it as it moves through the lymphatic structures under        the skin.

    • Put a moist heat, like a hot towel, on an achy and stiff arthritic   
      joint.  The heat will help loosen the tissues and increase the 
      circulation through them.  This followed up by a gentle massage 
      can improve mobility by a lot.

  Hot Therapy Don’t…

 • DON’T put heat on a new injury of any kind – even a muscle strain.    
    All new injuries are inflamed and placing a heating pad on the 
    inflamed part with increase the inflammation and nerve conductivity 
    creating more pain.  In addition, this will slow down the healing 
    process making your injury take longer to recover.

 • DON’T put heat on an arthritic flare up!  As the above line states, 
   inflammation and heating pads are not friends and the heat will 
   make the flare up worse. Basically when it comes to heat therapy, if 
   you are inflamed NO HEAT.

So now,  if our bodies have to deal with those chronically on a daily 
Cold Therapy Do…

      •  Got inflammation?  A fresh injury?  Then a cold pack really will be  
          your best friend.  The cold will reduce the inflammation and the 
          pain and will help speed the recovery process.  Try it out for 
          yourself some time and you will see that it’s true.

      •  Use a cold pack during an arthritic flare up  - when the joints are all 
         red and swollen.  Again, this will reduce the inflammation and the 
         pain.

      •  Use a cold towel when you have a head ache – place it on the base   
        of the skull and feel relief.  Light sensitive?  Drape the towel over 
        your head to block the light and gain relief from the cold.
  
     •  Keep a water bottle or bean bag in the freezer at all times to use 
        for nasty foot pain like plantar fascitis.  Just rest your foot on the 
        cold bag or roll it out on the bottle.

When inflammation occurs remember RICE: Rest Ice Compress Elevate.  And inflammation occurs every time your body is hurt.  So no more heating pads on your boo-boos, ok?