When you need relief from back pain, try heat therapy.
So what to do if you wake with a telltale ache after a tough match? A study published in the December 2005 Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, suggests that using heat-wrap therapy will help soothe the pain.
In the study, 43 patients, ages 20 to 62, who visited an occupational injury clinic for lower-back pain were divided into two groups. One group was given educational materials about back therapy and pain management; the other got the same information plus three consecutive days of continuous heat-wrap therapy for eight hours a day. The group who used the heat wraps, one example of which are ThermaCare’s HeatWraps, reported half the amount of pain (based on a questionnaire devoted to lower-back disability) that those who didn’t use them reported.
“The significant difference in the pain reported by the people who used heat for muscle pain and those who didn’t, surprised me,” says Edward J. Bernacki, M.D., M.P.H., an associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the study’s lead investigator. “Heat increases blood flow and helps begin the [healing] process,” Bernacki says. “That may be why the wraps provided relief.”
If you have back pain that persists for three days and doesn’t improve with rest and medication, or if you have numbness or tingling, you should see your physician to rule out something more serious.