Ice vs. Heat
What you need to know
Heat and cold are both natural agents that can help your body to heal and reduce pain. Let's get clear about when you would want to use one over the other.
Thermo-therapy. Why heat?
In general, short term exposure to heat is stimulating to the body, increases blood flow, can be deeply relaxing, helps soften muscle tension, and loosens fascia. This increases range of motion in the joints, promotes flexibility in ligaments, tendons, and in-between muscle layers.
With increased blood flow from heat, muscles have:
increased circulation
oxygen absorption
stiffness decreases as well as soreness
decreases muscle pain and spasms
Salves containing herbs and warming essential oils can help the tissues relax more effectively.
When to Use Heat Application
Chronic Pain is a big yes!
When it comes to overall body pain, use it for pain that is chronic in nature. Chronic pain is the kind of pain that is persistent in the body or comes and goes as your condition flairs up or subsides.
Use heat for stiff or tight muscles, areas with poor circulation, muscle spasms, muscle fatigue, and aching joints.
DO NOT:
Heat should be used during the final stages of healing when an injury is no longer inflamed and there isn't any open wound. Do not use it on new acute injuries or traumas that are accompanied by inflammation, swelling, and redness. Heat would only aggravate the injury. This goes for recent surgeries as well, since inflammation here is working in your favor during the bodies healing process-so adding heat isn't necessary.
Avoid heat application on fresh bruises, burns, sunburns, open wounds, blisters, rashes, skin infections, or injection sites less than ten days old even if your muscles could benefit from it. Another thing to consider is avoiding heat directly over a tumor or cyst, rosacea, or over implanted devices like a pacemaker or joint prosthetics.
How to use Heat:
Heat can move into the body in a few different ways. Conduction, such as hot packs, hot water bottles, or hot stones; Convection, like a sauna or a steam bath; Radiation, like infrared lamps or saunas; and Conversion, like an ultrasound.
How do you do this at home?
Hot packs or hot water bottles are excellent. There are hot packs that you can microwave that have rice in them, as well as some gel packs. Microwaving a wet towel is great as well. Heat paired with water tends to have a more penetrative effect. One of the easiest is a full body is a hot bath with epsom salts. Generally speaking, applying heat for 20 minutes is sufficient.
Cryotherapy. Why cold?
Cold reduces swelling and acute inflammation and in doing so saves tissues from damage. For acute injuries or traumas to body parts cold will help reduce pain by calming the conduction of the nerves at the injury site.
During the first 5 minutes, Cold constricts blood vessels reducing inflammation. Between 5 and 10 minutes after that, your vessels start dilating again with blood rushing in to the injury site. And so it continues. Cold application over time alternates in letting blood out of the area and bringing new blood into it.
Cold helps:
reduce inflammation
reduces swelling
helps bring in new blood
reduce pain at injury sites
When to Use Cold Application
Acute Injuries are a big yes!
(Unless its an open wound)
After an acute injury apply ice semi-regularly within the first 48 hours. Ice for about 10 minutes at a time.
Over icing could result in cold burns and dampen the healing effects of cryotherapy because the body then is trying to rush blood into that area to avoid cold damage (not what we're after).
DO NOT:
Use cold directly over open wounds, injection sites less than three days old, skin infections, rashes, or implanted devices such as a pacemaker.
If you suffer from arthritis, stiff ligaments, muscles, or tendons, have hypertension, or any rheumatoid conditions, don't use cold treatment.
How to use cold:
There are a ton of cold packs out there for icing, but you will want to find one that holds cold longer and doesn't accumulate a lot of condensation. Typically they are advertised for those reasons or are made of gel. A good old bag of peas works wonders and is often my preferred method (it hugs joints nicely).
How do you do this at home?
Cold showers, cold localized baths, or buckets with ice are all good alternatives. As a culture we tend to tip toward having a lot of inflammation in our bodies, so doing a cold shower or bath every once in a while, although not appealing, can help reset the body by stimulating our immune system.