How to choose a suitable option for your pain,hot or cold pack?

When you injure yourself, you may reach for a hot or a cold pack. Which option is better depends on the nature of your pain, what caused it and how long you’ve had it.

Heat therapy, sometimes called thermotherapy, involves applying heat to an injury or painful area on the body. Hot water bottles or pads that can be heated in a microwave oven are commonly used. Cold therapy, or cryotherapy, can come in the form of water bottles or pads cooled in a fridge or freezer.

Placing something cold at the injury site causes the blood vessels, arteries and veins, to narrow. This reduces blood flow through the area and helps reduce inflammation and swelling. Adding heat to the area has the opposite effect: opening the blood vessels up and increasing blood flow through injured tissue.

These opposite effects are useful in different situations.

We can treat injury or tissue pain with a hot or cold pack, or sometimes alternate the two.

Heat therapy is generally thought of as being either dry or moist.

Dry heat therapy includes hot water bottles or heated pads. These are easy to apply and are effective for reducing pain. Moist heat therapy includes warm bath, hot wet towel and moist heat packs.