Heat Or Ice For Back Pain. Which Is Most Effective?
Heat or ice? That’s the question so many people ask when they start developing back pain or neck pain? Which one is the most effective to use and when should I use either heat or ice. Well you’re in the right place as I explain what heat and ice are good for, when they should be used and how you should be applying them. You can also watch my video below:
Heat and ice have almost completely opposing effects in the body and do different things depending on which tissue you apply them to. The two major tissues involved with musculoskeletal conditions such as back pain are the muscles and the joints. Depending on which one you are trying to relieve will depend on what you want to use.
Heat
A heat patch will have a positive affect on the muscles. Heat causes an increase in the blood flow in a muscle which does a number of things. Firstly it will help to promote muscle function and reduce fatigue by increasing the amount of oxygen supplying the muscles. This will reduce the need for anaerobic respiration (which produces lactic acid and thus leading to muscle pain). Secondly it’s going to increase the amount of nutrients getting to the muscles and increase the rate at which waste products are being flushed out of the muscle. All of these things are going to improve muscle function and help to reduce any pain coming from the muscle.
Therefore if the cause of your problem is from the muscle, I would recommend you apply heat as this will most likely give you some relief.
Ice
Ice therefore will have a very different affect and is more commonly used for inflamed joints as opposed to the muscles. The reason why is due to the physiology of the inflammatory response. The increase of blood in an injured joint that is going on in the inflammatory response can increase as much as 10 times the original amount. This increases the pressure within the area and increases the amount of inflammatory markers which initiate nociceptors to produce pain. This is why there can be a lot of heat coming from an injured inflammed joint.
Now this inflammation can occur in your lower back or neck within the discs, sacroiliac joints or the facet joints and therefore it would make sense to apply ice onto the area to reduce the blood flow to relieve the pain. This makes a lot of sense if it was an ankle sprain or a sprained wrist however when it comes to the spine these joints are fairly deep within and covered by layers of ligaments, muscles and fascia, which makes it questionable whether applying ice superficially to the spine would have much affect on the joints of the low back in particular.
Conclussion
Therefore in conclusion, my advise would be to try heat first (whether that’s a heat patch or a heat pack covered with a towel) as you can more easily affect the muscles of the spine. If this does not help to relieve your pain, then try ice. Only do what brings you relief and therefore I would always suggest trying both. Do note however that the likelihood is, that applying either is only going to have a short term effect and probably isn’t going to affect the long term outcome too much. However, it can bring the relief you need in the short term that also doesn’t have the side affects that pain killers can have.
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