6 Ways You Can Use Hot and Cold Therapy Packs for Relief

By Brian Acton

Hot and cold therapy packs are versatile products that can be heated or cooled to provide quick relief for a variety of aches, pains, and injuries. In most cases, you simply apply the pack to the area that’s causing you discomfort. And while they may not have instant healing power, hot and cold packs can help you recover and manage pain. Here are six issues that you can relieve with hot and cold therapy packs.

1. Joint and Knee Pain

Recurring joint or knee pain and stiffness, such as that caused by arthritis, can be soothed using a heated pack. That’s because heat enhances circulation and delivers nutrients to your joints. This helps your joints lubricate, encourages the healing of tissue, decreases stiffness, and even distracts you from your pain. This kind of heat therapy is often recommended to warm up stiff joints before physical activity.

2. Sprains and Overuse Injuries

Cold therapy is better suited for acute or severe pain that causes inflammation or swelling, such as a sprain or overuse injury caused by accident or exercise. Applying cold packs to your injury restricts your blood vessels, slowing down circulation and reducing swelling. Cold temperatures also numb your nerve endings, which dulls pain. If you frequently work out, cold packs can relieve sore muscles that have been overworked.

3. Everyday Muscle Soreness and Aches

Heat therapy can provide welcome relief for everyday muscle soreness and common aches and pains. Heat therapy soothes and relaxes your muscles, reduces spasms, and can provide you a greater range of motion. If your pain isn’t injury-based but is an everyday soreness, heat therapy is the way to go.

4. Migraines

Although it may not work for everyone and the reasons why are poorly understood at best, cold packs can help provide relief from migraines. Anecdotally, many migraine sufferers have reported significant pain reduction when using cold therapy.

5. Dry Eyes

Heat therapy can even provide relief to dry and tired eyes caused by allergies, aging, or staring at screens. A moist heat pack can help reduce evaporative tear loss, keeping your eyes lubricated. You can heat up the MicroBeads Dry Eye Compress Moist Heat Pack and deliver relief to your dry, tired eyes.

6. Stress and Tension

The type of discomfort caused by stress - such as muscle tension in your neck and back - can build up over time and become quite uncomfortable. By invigorating blood flow, heat therapy can help reduce that tension and provide muscle relief. In Closing Core Products hot and cold packs can be cooled in the freezer or warmed in the microwave and applied directly to the affected body area. When choosing to heat or cool your packs, a good rule of thumb is to use cold therapy for recent injuries with swelling and heat therapy for chronic or everyday aches and pains.  Sources: https://www.arthritis-health.com/treatment/alternative-treatments/when-and-why-apply-heat-arthritic-joint https://www.excedrin.com/migraines/treatment/ice-pack-for-migraines/