Do you know when to use ice and when to use heat on a sports injury? Most ath­letes know to apply ice to an acute injury, like a sprained ankle, but aren’t so sure when to use heat. The fol­low­ing guide­lines will help you sort it out.

Acute and Chronic Pain

# There are two basic types of ath­letic injuries: acute and chronic. Acute Pain is of rapid onset and short-lived, or
# Chronic Pain devel­ops slowly and is per­sis­tent and long-lasting.

Acute and Chronic Injuries

Acute injuries are sud­den, sharp, trau­matic injuries that occur imme­di­ately (or within hours) and cause pain (pos­si­bly severe pain). Most often acute injuries result from some sort of impact or trauma such as a fall, sprain, or col­li­sion and it’s pretty obvi­ous what caused the injury.

Acute injuries also cause com­mon signs and symp­toms of injury such as pain, ten­der­ness, red­ness, skin that is warm to the touch, swelling and inflam­ma­tion. If you have swelling, you have an acute injury.

Chronic injuries, on the other hand, can be sub­tle and slow to develop. They some­times come and go, and may cause dull pain or sore­ness. They are often the result of overuse, but some­times develop when an acute injury is not prop­erly treated and doesn’t heal.

Cold Ther­apy with Nature Cre­ation Herbal Pack
Cold ther­apy with nature Cre­ation Herbal pack is the best imme­di­ate treat­ment for acute injuries because it reduces swelling and pain. Cold herbal pack is a vaso-constrictor (it causes the blood ves­sels to nar­row) and it lim­its inter­nal bleed­ing at the injury site. Apply Nature Cre­ation Cold Herbal pack to the affected area for 10 to 15 min­utes at a time. Allow the skin tem­per­a­ture to return to nor­mal before apply­ing the pack a sec­ond or third time. You can use Nature Cre­ation pack on an acute injury sev­eral times a day for up to three days.

Cold ther­apy is also help­ful in treat­ing some overuse injuries or chronic pain in ath­letes. An ath­lete who has chronic knee pain that increases after run­ning may want to ice the injured area after each run to reduce or pre­vent inflam­ma­tion. It’s not help­ful to ice a chronic injury before exercise.

Heat Ther­apy
Heat is gen­er­ally used for chronic injuries or injuries that have no inflam­ma­tion or swelling. Sore, stiff, nag­ging mus­cle or joint pain is ideal for the use of heat ther­apy. Ath­letes with chronic pain or injuries may use heat ther­apy before exer­cise to increase the elas­tic­ity of joint con­nec­tive tis­sues and to stim­u­late blood flow. Heat can also help relax tight mus­cles or mus­cle spasms. Don’t apply heat after exer­cise. After a work­out, ice is the bet­ter choice on a chronic injury.

Because heat increases cir­cu­la­tion and raises skin tem­per­a­ture, you should not apply heat to acute injuries or injuries that show signs of inflam­ma­tion. Safely apply heat to an injury 15 to 20 min­utes at a time and use enough lay­ers between your skin and the heat­ing source to pre­vent burns.

Moist heat is best, so you could try using a hot Nature Cre­ation Herbal Pack. Never leave the hot herbal pack on for more than 20 min­utes at a time or while sleeping.

Because some injuries can be seri­ous, you should see your doc­tor if your injury does not improve (or gets worse) within 48 hours.

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While the over­all qual­i­ties of warmth and heat have long been asso­ci­ated with com­fort and relax­ation, heat ther­apy goes a step fur­ther and can pro­vide both pain relief and heal­ing ben­e­fits for many types of lower back pain.

In addi­tion, heat ther­apy for lower back pain — in the form of heat­ing pads, heat wraps — is both inex­pen­sive and easy to do.

This arti­cle pro­vides an exam­i­na­tion of how heat ther­apy inter­acts with the body to alle­vi­ate pain as well as options on how to apply heat ther­apy to help alle­vi­ate many types of lower back pain.

How heat ther­apy works

Many episodes of lower back pain result from strains and over-exertions, cre­at­ing ten­sion in the mus­cles and soft tis­sues around the lower spine. As a result, this restricts proper cir­cu­la­tion and sends pain sig­nals to the brain.

Mus­cle spasm in the lower back can cre­ate sen­sa­tions that may range from mild dis­com­fort to excru­ci­at­ing lower back pain. Heat ther­apy can help relieve pain from the mus­cle spasm and related tight­ness in the lower back.

Heat ther­apy appli­ca­tion can help pro­vide lower back pain relief through sev­eral mechanisms:

• Heat ther­apy dilates the blood ves­sels of the mus­cles sur­round­ing the lum­bar spine. This process increases the flow of oxy­gen and nutri­ents to the mus­cles, help­ing to heal the dam­aged tissue.
• Heat stim­u­lates the sen­sory recep­tors in the skin, which means that apply­ing heat to the lower back will decrease trans­mis­sions of pain sig­nals to the brain and par­tially relieve the discomfort.
• Heat appli­ca­tion facil­i­tates stretch­ing the soft tis­sues around the spine, includ­ing mus­cles, con­nec­tive tis­sue, and adhe­sion. Con­se­quently, with heat ther­apy, there will be a decrease in stiff­ness as well as injury, with an increase in flex­i­bil­ity and over­all feel­ing of com­fort. Flex­i­bil­ity is very impor­tant for a healthy back.

There are sev­eral other sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits of heat ther­apy that make it so appeal­ing. Com­pared to most ther­a­pies, heat ther­apy is quite inex­pen­sive (and in many cir­cum­stances it’s free — such as tak­ing a hot bath). Heat ther­apy is also easy to do — it can be done at home while relax­ing, and portable heat wraps also make it an option while at work or in the car.

For many peo­ple, heat ther­apy works best when com­bined with other treat­ment modal­i­ties, such as phys­i­cal ther­apy and exer­cise. Rel­a­tive to most med­ical treat­ments avail­able, heat ther­apy is appeal­ing to many peo­ple because it is a non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical form of lower back pain relief.

How to Apply Heat Therapy

The most effec­tive heat ther­apy prod­ucts are the ones that can main­tain their heat at the proper tem­per­a­ture. “Warm” is the proper tem­per­a­ture. Patients should not have their heat source be hot to the point of burn­ing the skin. The desired effect is for the heat to pen­e­trate down into the mus­cles. Sim­ply increas­ing the tem­per­a­ture of the skin will do lit­tle to decrease discomfort.

In many instances, the longer the heat is applied, the bet­ter. The dura­tion that one needs to apply the heat, though, is based on the type of and/or mag­ni­tude of the injury. For very minor back ten­sion, short amounts of heat ther­apy may be suf­fi­cient (such as 15 to 20 min­utes). For more intense injuries, longer ses­sions of heat may be more ben­e­fi­cial (such as 30 min­utes to 2 hours, or more).

Two options of heat ther­apy include moist heat and dry heat.

• Dry heat, such as elec­tric heat­ing pads and saunas, draw out mois­ture from the body and may leave the skin dehy­drated. How­ever, some peo­ple feel that dry heat is the eas­i­est to apply and feels the best.

• Moist heat, such as hot baths, steamed tow­els or moist heat­ing packs can aid in the heat’s pen­e­tra­tion into the mus­cles, and some peo­ple feel that moist heat pro­vides bet­ter pain relief.

A spe­cific type of heat ther­apy may feel bet­ter for one per­son than for another, and it may require some exper­i­men­ta­tion to fig­ure out which one works best. There are many dif­fer­ent man­ners for heat to be applied to the lower back.  How­ever, I like to rec­om­mend the one, which I had expe­ri­enced and known.  It is Nature Cre­ation — The nat­ural Hot & Cold Herbal Ther­apy products.

Nature Cre­ation (www.naturecreation.com) is the ulti­mate nat­ural hot & cold pain ther­apy prod­ucts.  They hava vari­ety of designs to fit com­fort­ably to the shape of your body and main­taina the heat or cold effects through out the treat­ments.  The effects of the heal­ing is almost instan­te­nous.  Within 10–15 min­utes upon the treat­ments, you will feel the absolute relieve from your pain.

You may visit its com­pany web­site at www.naturecreation.com or call their friendly cus­tomer ser­vice at 1–888-250‑2010 ext., 101.

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