When to Use Heat and Ice

Check out a new Health tip Dr. Penry shared on our Facebook Page this week, facebook.com/docpenry

Here it is attached, in case you missed it.

Dr. Daren Penry:

Hi, there. It’s Dr. Daren Penry at Lakeview Center Chiropractic. We wanted to go over the questions that we get a lot about hot and cold. Of course, the challenge is, if you use heat or cold on the wrong thing, it can prolong problems or increase swelling. So, we want to make sure we get it right. So, a good rule of thumb to follow is to use cold on new injuries, and on just tight or sore muscles, use heat. So, an example of that would be if you injured your back picking something up, that would be a time to use cold. So, you want to get yourself a nice cold pack. Here’s a nice gel pack that’s flexible, and these work great. And you want to take a Kleenex, put it over the injured part of your back, right on the skin, and then take this ice pack, nice and cold, and put it over top of that Kleenex. And you can put that on there for 10 to 20 minutes in order to cool down the area and help things heal.

On the other side of things, if you overworked yourself in the yard or doing a sport, and you just have some tight muscles that afternoon, or the next day, using heat, preferably moist heat, like a hot water bottle, hot as you can tolerate works best. And take that hot water bottle and put that on the tight muscles that you have in the back. So, I hope this helps give you an overview of when to use hot and cold. If you have more questions, feel free to give us a call. Or if you want to get one of the ice packs, let us know, we can help you with that as well.

You can also email the reception by clicking Lakeview Center Chiropracticor call (425) 889-4701.

Have a Healthy Day!

Your Lakeview Center Team