Pain is far too common. Whether it is a headache, a ripped ligament, a sprained leg, or sore muscles, pain for many people is just a reality. Any cause of the pain remains an undeniable fact: nobody wants to suffer. Moreover, while modern medicine has produced many regular treatments to help with various levels of pain, relying solely on medications to correct the problem is not always necessary or appropriate.
Ice and heat therapy come in here. Ice, heat, or both may go a long way to ease your pain and improve the overall quality of your life.
Benefits of Heat or Cold Treatment
Both cold and heat treatments soothe dullness and pain due to conditions such as osteoarthritis, back pain, rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, and heat and cold neck pain. You can get help in:
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Muscle aches, spasms, and pains
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Hand, finger, or wrist pain
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Upper and lower back pain
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Swollen, Stiff, or tender joints
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Knee pain
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Neck stiffness
Cold Therapy
Injury often bruises, swells, and fires the surrounding soft tissue. If a cooling agent is used to reduce swelling and inflammation, blood vessels are constrained, and blood flow is reduced. The heat of the skin falls, and the endings of the nerves are numbed, which makes the pain less intense.
The Cooling Options are:
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Ice packs, cubes, and baths
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Coolant sprays
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Crushed ice compress
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Frozen gel packs
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Cold cloth
Heat Therapy
Heat treatments are used for relaxing and calming muscle or articular pain and rigidity, chronic pain, and muscle spasms. The blood vessels are dilated, and blood flows to the heated area, supplying the necessary nutrients and oxygen and helping cell waste disposal and cure.
Two kinds of heat therapy are available: dry heat and moist heat.
Dry Heat: The dry heat covers saunas or items such as dry heating packs, bottles of hot water, gel packs, or heating pads that are suitable for both local and small areas of pain.
Moist heat: Moist heat includes items such as towels, humid clay packs, or hot baths used at physiotherapy clinics or hospitals.
Heat or Ice?
Ice or heat: what would the injury have been better? We could fill pages with all the scenarios in which you could decide to use heat or ice to deal with pain. However, we from a pain clinic in OKC recommend as a general thumb rule this: start with ice when it is bleeding or swelling.
You may also want to call your doctor in the pain clinic in OKC, depending on the extent of the injury. Use ice for 48 hours if you choose to wait. Then definitely make a doctor’s appointment if it is still swollen and painful. This rule applies even if you suspect a muscle has been injured. While heat can heal the muscles themselves in the long run, ice can initially be the best treatment to reduce inflammation and pain.
Be careful of how your body reacts to the use of heat. Does a heating pad leave pain? Stop heating and call an appointment with your doctor in a pain clinic in OKC to discuss the cause of your pain if it does not go away or gets worse. Even if the heating pad makes your pain easier, keep an eye on how often your pain is heated. You could still be able to talk with a pain doctor in the clinic of OKC about what causes your ongoing pain when things become something that you trust a lot.
Contact us today and see how the professionals at Oklahoma Spine & Pain Management in OKC can help you regain a painless life.
**Disclaimer: This content should not be considered medical advice and does not imply a doctor-patient relationship.
