microwave for 20-60 seconds. You may get better heat transfer from the towel than from the heating pad.
As with cold therapy, you shouldn’t place the heated item directly on your skin as you may burn yourself. It’s best to wrap it up in a towel or rag. Once it’s prepared, you can apply heat therapy for 20 minutes or less. As a rule, if it starts to feel too warm, then you should remove it.
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Which One To Choose
Interestingly, doctors recommend alternating between hot and cold therapy. While you can’t move from one to the other during the same session, it can be helpful to use heat therapy to manage daily joint pain and cold therapy for painful flares.
With certain conditions like arthritis and fibromyalgia, you might get the most out of using heat therapy in the morning to free up your aching, stiff joints and cold therapy when you’re having more painful episodes.
If you’ve been injured, it can help to apply cold therapy at the beginning to alleviate the pain and swelling then switch to heat therapy in an hour or two to encourage healing if the swelling has gone down.
When you have joint pain, the last thing you want is to use the wrong thing to ease the discomfort. Fortunately, you can use heat or cold to help depending on what your symptoms are. If nothing alleviates the pain or swelling in your joints, however, it could be time to talk to your doctor.