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Commonly asked questions
Why shouldn't I use heat? It feels good!
Just because something feels good doesn't mean that its doing good things for you. When heat is typically used, it is often for chronic situations or problems that have been around for a long time. Heating an area will create vasodilation into an area, which essentially means that the blood vessels in your body will open up and flush more blood to an area. Sometimes that isn't necessarily a good thing! When injuries occur, your body has a natural reaction to heal the area but at the same time, in order for healing to occur wastes accumulate within the area. If you are opening up the blood vessels and allowing more waste to accumulate, then this is ultimately going to cause more problems then benefits. Again heating will feel good intitially but the wastes that accumulate afterwards can cause problems.
A much better solution would be to alternate hot and cold always ending with cold.
Example: If you use a heating pack/pad for 10 minutes, finish with a cold pack on that area for an additional 5 minutes. This will cause a flushing reaction that will open up the blood vessels then close them allowing the wastes to leave the area of injury rather then accumulate and cause more problems.
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