In this article you are going to discover awesome heat wraps for neck and shoulder pain. These really do help to soothe you and comfort you. They are such a nice way to be able to unwind.
These heated wraps simultaneously soothe and relax sore and aching muscles in your neck and shoulders by using invigorating vibration massage.
As you many know, regular rectangular heating pads do not provide ideal contact or coverage.
These models, on the other hand, have slightly weighted edges and magnetic closure to provide a custom fit around your neck, shoulders, and upper back.
As a result, the integrated heating elements deliver consistent, therapeutic heat to the muscles that are prone to pain and tightness.
The heat penetrates deep into your body, stimulating blood circulation to loosen muscles, soothe joints and relieve swelling.
The 100% polyester micro plush wraps are so soft against skin.
You can operate the wraps using the tethered controllers. There are two temperature settings and four different massage levels,. There are also automatic shut off settings for both heat and massage.
They Plug into AC with a 9′ cord that provides generous freedom of movement. The covers are fully machine-washable.
Here is another amazing model of heat wrap for neck and shoulder pain.
This cordless wrap is made with the plush micro-mink exterior and soft sherpa interior.
The built-in heating element provides three levels of heat (113°, 122°, and 131° F) on a 45-minute timer. You operate it using a using a handheld controller.
A button at the top secures the wrap around the shoulders. The weight of the front keeps the wrap flat against the chest.
Battery recharges via AC adapter.
Benefits of Heat
Many people do not know that the use of heat can be very beneficial for the treatment of musculoskeletal pain.
Let’s talk a little bit about the effects of heat on the body and what situations might warrant the use of heat.
Heat, as you may be aware is a vasodilator. It takes our blood vessels from a position of constriction, or reduced blood flow to a position of dilation for increased blood flow.
Often when we experience pain in our bodies, the brain reacts with a contracture. It attempts to protect the area that’s hurting.
People that suffer with bad backs or musculoskeletal pain often have, over a period of time, shortened or tightened muscles. If you suffer from recurring back spasms or neck pain, often the upper trapezius muscles, the scalenes and the erector spinae muscles are chronically tight. They’ve become tight over a period of time.
And it’s a lot of reduced blood flow through there. There’s a lot of lactic acid building up in the tissues and the muscles themselves are apoxic. Basically they are starved of oxygen.
When muscles become starved of blood flow, the overall health of the tissue goes down.
When seen under the microscope, healthy muscle cells are pink because they experience good blood flow and they have the oxygen and the nutrition that they need.
However, when there is a lack of blood flow, cells become atrophied, they can experience cell death, or even necrosis where without sufficient nutrition and oxygen the cells just break down and die.
In these situations the muscles respond very well to heat.
If you place heat on a atrophied muscle, which is suffering from chronic fatigue because it’s not had enough blood flowing through it, then that can have a very relieving effect.
If you suffer with ongoing musculoskeletal pain you may have some chronic muscle fatigue.
Cold vs. Heat Therapy – Which Should You Use?
When you’re in pain, you want to use heat or maybe ice, but you’re not really sure.
We’d like to clarify the difference between heat and ice. They are two totally separate entities, they should not be used together, unless you know what you’re doing.
Which one is better, when should you use one and not use the other?
Briefly ice is used for acute injuries, acute problems, something that just recently happened, like an injury or fall. Usually there is going to be inflammation, there’s going to be swelling and redness.
You want to reduce the swelling, reduce the inflammation to prevent the problem from getting worse and actually preventing a healing phase from occurring as a result of too much swelling in the area.
Heat on the other hand is for chronic conditions, things that are not acute, strains, pulled muscles, chronic arthritic changes, muscles that are just tight, but there’s no swelling, there’s no inflammation. It’s just something that’s been sitting around a long period of time.
So when you look at the benefits of cold therapy and ice, it decreases the amount of recovery time, reduces the pain that you would feel after the injury and when it’s applied in the right area, right after an injury, the risk of cell death is limited.
So ice can do you a lot of good in preventing the problem from getting worse as well as accelerating your injured condition.
The benefits of heat increases blood flow to the area, it reduces the exudates, which are the toxins sitting inside the cells, it helps relax muscle, it brings in lots of circulation to help bring in lots of oxygen, so it can heal much faster.
There you have it. The difference between ice and heat. Make the right choice and you’ll see a much faster recovery to your problems that you’re suffering with right now.
