The answer is almost always cold. Do not put heat on an area that is inflamed already (adding heat to heat), or an area that is swollen (with fluid) or bruised. Do not heat anything that is acute or new - you just hurt it, pulled it, sprained it, etc. You want to stabilize the area, stop the area from swelling further and the blood from coagulating. Ice is your friend in this case. When you apply ice, in the form of an ice pack or a bag of peas from the freezer, the blood in that area immediately rushes out, to get away from the cold, because it doesn't want to freeze. Then, as you keep the ice there longer, blood comes back in, trying to keep the area from freezing after all. You have effectively just flushed the area with new blood.

Remember "RICE"? It's standard First-Aid. When you hurt something, and it's not so critical that you need an ambulance (which is a whole different ballgame), you follow the RICE method to recovery. Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation. Say you just sprained your ankle - you want to completely make a change in direction from Hurt-Pain-Swelling-Bruising to Stabilized-Healing.

Rest. Your body has some work to do, in-house maintenance and repair, and if you would just rest a while it could get some of that done for you.

Ice. To flush the blood and fluids, and stop the heat of inflammation.

Compression. To further stabilize the area, offer the tissue support, and aid in pushing fluids out that want to swell the area.

Elevation. To keep the hot blood flowing away from the area.

You can use heat on an area that is chronically tight or painful as long as you KNOW that the area is not a new injury, inflamed, swollen or arthritic. If you know those things, then you can use heat, whether it's an old fashioned electric heating pad, a hot pack or rice in specially made fabric sack. I would say stick with the rice or chemical pack, since the heating pad gives off electro-magnetic energy waves that can be disruptive to humans, who have an electric system of our own already.

Optimally, you can use far-infrared heat, which is the kind of heat that we get from the sun that warms us through and through and heals us. Topical heat, like the heating pad, only heats up the skin. Far-infrared heat can sink in to the tissue. You can use Far-infrared much sooner than traditional heat on sub-acute injuries - injuries that are a least a few days old.

Please see my page on Migun for more information on the healing properties of far-infrared heat.

2007 © Lisa Henderson, NC-LMBT #4665. This article not to be copied for commercial use.