If we feel pain, is it advisable to treat the affected area with a cold or hot compress?
If we make the wrong choice, the complaints may even get worse. It doesn’t hurt to know when it is recommended to use which one.
Appropriate application of cold and heat therapy.
Heat therapy
When making a warm poultice, it is important that the temperature always remains tolerable, in order to prevent circulatory disorders or skin burns. The heat relaxes the nerves, muscles and tendons, and strengthens the immune system.
Warm compresses are used for stiff muscles, back pain or lumbago. This can be a hot bath, a therapeutic mud pack that maintains body temperature. The heat relaxes and eliminates long-standing pain. However, heat is prohibited in the case of dull, throbbing pain. Because the increasing blood supply would only further strengthen the feeling of pain. With a warm compress on the back of the neck, we can relieve the headache, because the heat relieves muscle spasms, which can contribute to the development of the headache.
Dry heat relieves stomach aches and menstrual complaints, but it can also be excellent for relieving pain in the case of intestinal spasms, earaches and sciatica. This can be heated salt or a rubber hose with warm water. Moist heat, on the other hand, is effective for colds. For example, a 10-minute inhalation of chamomile tea clears the airways when you have a cold.
However, it should not be used in case of an acute attack. In this case, only the cold helps.
Cold therapy
The cold compress works really quickly, so it’s a real first aid: it calms the bleeding and prevents swelling. Its effect slows down blood flow and metabolism, thereby reducing itching and pain. This is because there are fewer signals running along the neural pathways. It also relieves acute inflammations.
The principle of cooling: never put ice directly on the skin and sometimes interrupt the therapy so that the skin tissue can regenerate. In case of insect bites or burns, the affected area should be cooled for half an hour with short interruptions. Later, we can relieve itching and prevent the development of inflammation by using a yogurt or curd wrap.
Swelling and pain after a sports injury can be avoided with an ice pack. We can use a package of vegetables from the freezer, a frozen wet cloth, an ice cube wrapped in a towel, or an ice battery. The cold effectively alleviates tension headaches, migraines, and rheumatic inflammation. But remove the ice pack as soon as the pain subsides. Icing for too long can have the opposite effect: blood circulation in the area accelerates, so it will be more painful than before.
Cold and heat therapy
The alternating cold and hot stimuli during sauna strengthen the functioning of the immune system and exercise the blood vessels. But be careful! The sauna also strengthens existing blood circulation problems!
