How Moist Heat Therapy Can Ease Your Chronic Pain

Are you one of the more than 50 million Americans living with chronic pain? Or maybe you are just recovering from a painful injury? Regardless, one way to start feeling better is to take a proactive approach to pain management. Moist heat therapy is one way to start treating pain naturally on your own. You can use a moist heating pad like the Thermalon wrap to help prevent injuries, to heal injuries, or as part of your chronic pain-control plan. Moist heat therapy can help you reclaim the healthy, happy, active life you want to have.

Living with Pain Can Lower Your Quality of Life

The U.S. has been described as a nation in pain. More than half of all emergency room visits are for treatment of some kind of pain, be it acute or chronic. Acute pain is temporary pain which goes away quickly, after the cause of the pain heals or is removed. Despite being short-term, acute pain can still disrupt your life. Chronic pain is any pain that lasts longer than three-six months. Chronic pain can result after an injury that makes it hard for your body to move naturally. Chronic pain is the number one reason people in the U.S. seek medical care.

As we get older, we are more likely to experience chronic pain from conditions such as arthritis, cancer, or nerve-related pain. One out of every three adults in the US older than age 65 report chronic pain. The most common sources of chronic pain are (in order of frequency):

1. Back Pain
2. Headache/Migraine
3. Neck Pain
4. Facial Pain

Pain can affect your whole body and life, not just the site of your pain. For example, living with pain can limit your:

• Mobility
• Independence
• Relationships
• Productivity
• Mental Health
• Physical Health

What is chronic pain?

Chronic pain is any pain that lasts longer than three-six months. Chronic pain can result after an injury that makes it hard for your body to move naturally. Chronic pain is the number one reason people in the U.S. seek medical care.

What is Moist Heat Therapy and Why Does It Treat Pain So Well?

Moist heat therapy uses deep penetrating moisture and therapeutic heat  to soothe, relax and heal sore muscles, joints and ligaments. Moist heat treatments like those from the Thermalon moist heat wrap penetrate your muscles and tissues more deeply, increasing blood flow to the injured area. The blood brings nutrients and oxygen to promote healing.

Moist heat does a better job of treating pain than heat from a dry heating pad because the moisture allows heat to reach more deeply into your tissues. Patients report greater pain relief after moist heat therapy than dry heat therapy. Moist heat therapy can also help block the pain signals being sent to your brain, limiting how much pain you feel.

Using a moist heat pad is a natural, non-drug treatment for your pain. Unlike pain-relieving ointments or rubs, it does not cause any potential skin irritation.

Heat wraps such as the Thermalon moist heating pad can safely  be used together with over the counter pain medication or physical therapy exercises to boost your overall pain relief. For example, using a microwaveable moist heat back wrap every day if you suffer from chronic back pain may help to decrease your pain so you are able to move more. With increased mobility, you may get more out of your physical therapy exercises to rehabilitate your back, speeding up your time to recovery.

Did you know?

Moist heat treatments like those from the Thermalon moist heat wrap penetrate your muscles and tissues more deeply, increasing blood flow to the injured area. The blood brings nutrients and oxygen to promote healing… Patients report greater pain relief after moist heat therapy than dry heat therapy.

Use Moist Heat Therapy Proactively to Break the Pain Cycle

Living in fear of pain is stressful, hard work. The emotional side effects of living with pain change the way we move through the world, physically and emotionally. We can become locked in something called the pain cycle. The pain cycle can make pain worse in a positive feedback loop of Pain —> Muscle Tension —> Stiffness —> Swelling —> Inactivity —> Weakness —> Decreased Function —> Toxic Thinking —> More Pain.

Moist heat therapy relaxes both your body and your brain. They are able to relax and take a break from the chronic stress of the pain cycle. We feel more pain when we are stressed. Moist health therapy helps tense muscles relax while simultaneously calming your mind and lowering stress levels, lowering the amount of pain you feel.

Pain relief tip

Moist heat therapy is therapeutic because it treats the cause of your pain, rather than just blocking the pain signals like many as do pain medications or topical pain relievers.

Why Make An Effort To Break the Cycle?

While it may sound difficult, taking a proactive approach to treating your own pain helps you to feel in control again. It is easy to feel helpless when pain controls your life. This helplessness can lead to a variety of health concerns including:

• increased stress
• anxiety
• depression
• worsening pain

Treating the cause

Moist heat therapy is therapeutic because it treats the cause of your pain, rather than just blocking the pain signals like many as do pain medications or topical pain relievers. Knowing that natural, healthy, side effect-free pain relief is at your fingertips helps put you back in the driver’s seat of your own life. This improved sense of overall well-being lowers your perception of your pain and motivates you to move more, do more, and feel better in a much healthier kind of positive feedback loop than the pain cycle.

With a natural treatment products in hand, like Thermalon moist heat wraps that helps relieve the source of your pain instead of only the symptoms, you’re ready to break your pain cycle and get back to the activities you love.

Ready to get started? Prepare with these chronic pain relieving wraps by ordering yours today. 

April 1, 2024