A cool idea for your home muscle-soreness relief kit

Once again thank you for the responses and interaction — I have received a ton of requests for information about injury prevention. That is a big, important topic, and I will address it, I promise. First, I have to finish this series on home remedies — those of you who know me, know that I can only do one thing at a time, and I have to finish what I've started before moving on to something else (no wise cracks you guys).

Cold as ice

We typically use ice after we suffer some type of impact injury where swelling ensues, e.g., hitting our thumb with a hammer, falling and banging a knee or getting hit on the head. Applying ice reduces the swelling and therefore reduces the pain . . .

So you know about using ice to reduce the swelling and pain of an injury but sometimes getting ice on an area can be tricky and cumbersome. For this, I recommend getting ice gel packs. Get at least two in different sizes. One should be large and the other should be medium or small. The large pack should cover the area across your lower back. The medium or small pack should cover your neck and trapezius muscles . These are approximations, the sizes vary depending on the manufacturer’s designs. The reason gel packs work so well is that you can form it around a shoulder or knee to achieve better coverage.

Using your cool

Try using cold therapy where you would ordinarily use heat. Here are a couple of common examples.

• Sore back muscles — Sometimes back muscles ache from work stress. That stress causes pain-inducing inflammation.
• Headaches — Headaches respond to cold therapy as well. Try a cold gel pack on the back of your neck when you have pain in the front of your head or directly behind your eyes.
  I put an ice pack on top of my head to relieve headaches from being out in the heat for too long. I usually feel relief in about 15 minutes.

Heating up

If these attempts don’t have a positive effect within a reasonable amount of time try heat therapy — I’ll cover that in next week’s blog

peace and love
chuck.