Five-Minute Stress Relief.com

Cold Packs (Cryotherapy) for Reducing Muscle Pain and Bodyache

Applying Cold is the Remedy for Professional Athletes

After each basketball game, every NBA player sits with two enormous ice packs wrapped around his knees. All professional players have 20-minute ice-downs before they board their charter jet and fly to the next city.

This is because Sports Medicine has proven cryotherapy (“icing-down”) on the knees extends a basketball player's athletic performance, since cold treatments are well known for reducing pain and swelling. Those million-dollar knees are cooled and protected after every practice and game. Regular ice-downs are strict policy on most professional teams, because cryotherapy is the most prevalent strategy used to treat and prevent sports injuries.   

How Cryotherapy and Cold Packs Work

When your muscles over-perform or experience stressful demands, they develop low-level inflammation. Physical exertion, repetitive motion and stress generate inflammation in muscles that result in soreness, ache, or sharp pain that comes and goes. Cold temperatures also produce painkilling effects by slowing down neural impulses that communicate pain to the brain.

Cryotherapy also produces sizeable reduction in tissue swelling by causing the contracting of the walls of blood vessels, thereby limiting the amount of blood reaching an area. So cooling body tissue reduces inflammation and all of its symptoms and also results in less need for pain medication.

Cold packs are widely recommended by doctors, chiropractors, physical therapists and sports therapy specialists. Because cryotherapy is so helpful for relieving symptoms of physical stress, the following are instructions concerning the use of cold packs. This health maintenance aid is not intended to treat any medical condition or disease.

Practical Suggestions

• To perform cryotherapy, use gel-filled cold packs. These reusable cold packs contain a chemical gel that, when cooled, retains a low temperature. Cold packs also will not become brittle, as real ice does, so its flexibility allows you to wrap the cold pack around your elbow, knee, wrist, etc.

• Re-useable cold packs are easy to store in your freezer and are designed to be used over and over. When needed, use for 20 minutes, and then put back in the freezer. In an hour or so, the pack has cooled and is ready to use again. 

• Use a light cloth or towel around your hand, as you handle the cold pack.

• Do not apply a cold pack to an open cut or wound.

Use Caution

• Applying intense cold directly to your skin can be harmful, causing the skin to blister. Do not press a cold pack directly out of the freezer onto your skin. Use a light cloth material (cotton t-shirts are great) between the cold pack and your skin.

• Allow the skin to get used to the colder temperature. After five minutes of application, you may choose to remove the cloth and re-apply cold pack directly to skin. Be attentive to what is comfortable to your body.

• If you are very sensitive to cold, be patient and proceed in small steps. Let your body slowly adapt to the coldness of the packs over repeated applications. Proceed slowly and let it come over time.

• In the beginning, some people are barely able to handle the sensation of the cold pack. However, as they got more benefits and their symptoms diminish, those same people come to enjoy the cool sensation on their muscles. Now they perceive it as soothing, relaxing and comforting.

• To obtain maximum results, apply cold pack for 20 minutes. If you can only do 10 minutes, there will still be a positive effect. However, your body requires 20-minute applications to obtain the full benefit. As always, consult with your physician before performing this stress aid.

Using a Cold Pack on Forehead For Headaches

• Use a light cloth material (cotton t-shirts are great) between the cold pack and your skin. Also use a cloth to cover your hand, as you hold the pack.

• Place the cold pack across the forehead. As you acclimate, you’ll find the cooling effect calms the nerves and clears the head. In addition to reducing headache pain, cold packs on the forehead are also effective for relieving mental fatigue.

• You can also place the cold pack on back of the neck at the base of the skull. This area (called the occipital region) is where the pain source of tension headaches begins.

© 2009 Five-Minute Stress Relief - All Rights Reserved

Sources: Medical Ice Slurry Coolants for Inducing Targeted-Organ/Tissue Protective Cooling Biomedical Applications Argonne National Laboratory U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science (www.ne.anl.gov) June 2008 Superficial Heat and Cold: How to Maximize the Benefits The Physician and Sportsmedicine Vol. 22(12), pp. 65-74, 1994 Academy of Stress Management Richard Lewis ISBN 0-9664069-4

Print PDF Page for: Cold Packs (Cryotherapy) for Reducing Muscle Pain and Bodyache