Do you ever have swollen joints or sore muscles? You may be an athlete, exercise religiously, or have an autoimmune disease. There are two different temperature renowned ways to help with the healing process. Individuals are able to “use cold for acute pain [new swollen or inflamed injury] or use hot for chronic pain [injury that is a day or more old]”.
Let us start with the heat therapy, or more commonly known as Thermotherapy. This therapy treatment is common for “stiff joints or chronic muscle and joint pain.” A chemical by the name Lactic acid is compiled when the muscles are “put under stress and deprived of oxygen.” This type of acid will cause your muscles to become sore because of decreased blood flow within the injured area. The decrease in blood flow causes lactic acid to become stuck. Applying heat will heighten the blood supply i.e. produced a solid flow of blood. Heat will also reduce the make of any toxins. It will relax the injured area for a minimum length of time. We can work with two forms of heat therapy. There is local and systemic heat. Local heat comes from tools that are more common and convenient. These consist of heating pads, damp towels and heating wraps. On the other hand, systemic heat is conducted through larger items. These would be anything relating to a hot bath, shower or sauna.
Now let’s drop the temperature. Using cold temperature therapy is distinguished as Cryotherapy. Once an injury occurs “the damaged tissue becomes inflamed.” This form of therapy is used “24 to 48 hours after an injury.” Unlike thermotherapy, this source of temperature therapy will narrow the blood vessels which intern slows blood flow. If the blood continues to flow naturally it could cause “fluid buildup in the affected area.” Ways to apply cold to the swollen or sore area is through ice packs, an ice towel, cool gel packs or even a frozen bag of vegetables — I’ve used that a lot. It is important that you do not keep a cold item on the spot for longer than 20 minutes.
Aside from homemade therapy, there is also items people buy that help relieve their sore muscles. “Icy to dull the pain. Hot to relax it.” Who uses this slogan? The answer.. IcyHot! Many people have either used or heard of this company. IcyHot produces about 17 products from creams to patches to sleeves. Each product has specific directions for use and should not be over used or applied. WebMD lists some side effects of IcyHot when used incorrectly or if the user is allergic.
Andrew stated in multiple classes that our intuition is lousy. People believe that if we simply apply cold or heat application to injured areas, that it will heal. This is an incorrect statement. Do not rely on either method of therapy to fully cure the injured or irritated area. Both will only provide temporary relief.
Note: both treatments should not be applied directly on the skin due to obvious reasons.
Samantha,
It was the exact same way for me. When I got an injury my mom would pick either method (depending on what the injury was) and apply it. I had no idea why she used either a heating pad or iced towel. Seeing the facts and figures of each makes complete sense now! I am glad you were able to grasp interest and knowledge from this blog. The website you shared is actually one of my sources, sadly I meant to add “when to use each” and forgot.
I found this article interesting. I swam my whole life and would constantly be going to my coach with injuries asking if I should ice it or heat it. after describing it he would tell me what to do and I never knew his magic way, but what he told me was always a great temporary relief. It would have been interesting to include in your article when to use heat vs when to use cold, because there are times to use each one. This website provides a great explanation for when to use heat and when to use cold: http://www.healthline.com/health/chronic-pain/treating-pain-with-heat-and-cold#Heat2
The changing of body temperatures was something I completely forgot to talk about! It is very dangerous to fluctuate the temperatures of your body. This is especially bad the temperature is heightened to an extreme warm or dropped to a very cool temperature. That is something to take into consideration when working with injury therapy. I am glad you learned something from this blog, thanks!
I find this blog very interesting, because there are some side effects of using hot or cold therapy for physical injuries. Personally, I am more a fan of cold treatments. Whenever I have a swollen toe or I banged my finger on something, I tend to put it into ice, but I never knew that it is only a temporary fix. But it does make sense that the ice will not fully fix my injury, it will just num the pain. Also, on another note, I do agree with WebMd that there are side effects to icy hot. There have been studies done that show that changing a persons body temperature from hot to cold, or cold to hot, can be dangerous to the body in the long run. Really interesting article, and I am happy I learned more about this!