When dealing with muscle pain it's hard to know what treatment will work best for you. You might be wondering if ice and heat will work for you. Or maybe even which will work better - ice OR heat.

Icing and heating are 2 of the most natural treatment options available. Compared to medications, surgery and other treatment methods - icing and heating have been around for centuries and have always been used for muscle injury healing as a means to soothe and heal.

We understand that it can get pretty confusing to figure out what conservative treatment method will work best with all of the treatment options available to you today. To get started, you should think about the benefits you'll get from using these therapies.

Ice and heat are the best treatment combination for you if:

• You're looking to heal quickly from your soft tissue injury and want to boost the natural power of pain relief and healing in your body.
• You don't want to repeatedly pay the cost (both from your wallet and time needed for long-term healing) of injections, medications, hospital visits or surgery.
• You want to decrease your risk of worsening your injury, causing pain, sprains, strains, pulls, spasms or tears to your muscle.
• You want to control your own treatment and healing at home, on your own time.
• You're looking for a tried, tested, and true method of healing that's been used for centuries and has worked for countless other muscle pain sufferers.

Combining cold and warmth is a simple yet effective way to get immediate pain relief and promote long-term healing. In your lifetime you've probably had your mom, family doctor, nurse, surgeon or physical therapist tell you to use ice right after you're injured and something warm from time to time once the swelling's gone down. It's a simple yet very effective way to relieve pain and promote healing in your injured, sprained, strained, torn, pulled or spasming muscle.

Muscle injuries can happen to anyone, and right now there are thousands of doctors and physical therapists dealing with patients that require a solution to treat their strained / pulled muscle fast and heal it (where possible).

If you want to be proactive about properly dealing with your muscle pain, speak to your doctor about adding conservative temperature treatments to your recovery with AidMyMuscle's system using a Cold Compress or Ice Pack and Soft Tissue Repair Therapy with a TShellz Wrap.

Superior Technology

When It Comes to Soft Tissue Injury Treatment, a T•Shellz Wrap^® is Superior to Heat; so instead of talking about heat, lets talk about the T•Shellz Wrap^®

Use a T•Shellz Wrap^®, NOT Heat

The idea of using heat was to try and get your body to circulate more blood into your injured tissue. The problem is that most heat doesn't get down below the sub-dermal skin layer - as such it is largely ineffective. This is why our STR Therapy wraps are superior to heat. Each STR Therapy Wrap emits a uniform wave of healing electromagnetic energy over the entire treatment area. This energy travels deep down to your muscles and tendons, stimulating the blood flow in and around the treatment area - just the same as a heat application was intended to do - only T•Shellz Wrap^® does it better. The electromagnetic energy is CRUCIAL to the healing process.

Electromagnetic energy waves (EMR) are not Heat Waves. When they are emitted from the T•Shellz Wrap^® they penetrate right through your skin and fat layers until they get to denser soft tissue such as your ligaments, muscles, and tendons. EMR waves are absorbed by this dense soft tissue and this absorption of energy results in increased bloodflow .... that's Enhanced Healing Power (EHP) -right at the location of the injury.

The use of ElectroMagnetic Energy is the only way that will provide the STR Therapy effect deep in the body where it is needed. The TShellz Wrap is a flexible, therapeutic wrap that can significantly increase bloodflow at the source of your injury! The Deep Tissue Repair process is something you will find nowhere else.

Electromagnetic Energy => Increased Blood Flow => More Oxygen, More Nutrients and Less Toxins => Faster Healing

Using heat when the energy is only pushing into the top layers of the skin won't give you deep tissue healing. In this case, the blood is actually rushing AWAY from deep tissue in the body, up to the surface of your skin - exactly the opposite of what we want. You can easily see this when applying surface heat to your skin - it gets red - this means that blood is rushing to your skin to try and disperse the heat before it goes deeper.

If you try and heat deep tissue from the surface, you will find that little, if any, heat will reach deep. The skin and fat layer below the skin are very efficient insulators - they protect extreme temperatures from penetrating. There's even a condition for overuse of a skin-level heat source called toasted skin syndrome, hot water bottle rash, fire stains, laptop thigh, or granny's tartan (reference: 1 - opens in new window).

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Note: If you have an Acute (recent, inflamed) Soft Tissue Injury, Do Not Use Heat.

Your doctor knows that the sooner cold is applied, the quicker you can reduce inflammation and achieve real pain relief. This will help reduce the chance of a much longer lasting chronic injury. Heat and inflammation are a bad mix and should not be used together. Heat is good at the spa - it will help your body relax, but when it comes to an injury that is swollen, it is not a good idea (unless your physician specifically recommends otherwise).

When To Use Cold:

A Cold Compress or Ice Pack work best to relieve pain, swelling and inflammation for new injuries, re-injury and during immediate post surgery recovery. Cold therapy should also be used during the first 24 - 72 hours of treatment, combined with resting your injury.

When to use a T•Shellz Wrap^® (HEAT):

Use cold after any sort of activity causes you inflammation and/or on-going pain.

Use a T•Shellz Wrap^® before activity and when you notice stiffness to 'warm up' soft tissue and stimulate healing.

When Should You Use A T•Shellz Wrap^® (Deep Tissue Heat) To Treat Your Strained Muscles?

STR Therapy treatments work best to increase blood flow circulation and stimulate healing for older (chronic) injuries, re-injuries (after swelling has been reduced) and during long-term post surgery recovery.

STR Therapy should not be used directly after an injury, as you must wait for swelling to drop. STR Therapy treatments should not be started for a least 2 weeks after surgery because inflammation levels will be very high as the healing process starts over again. Any use of STR Therapy should also be combined with gradual movement to stretch out your hips and increase range of motion.

If you have a chronic soft tissue injury that keeps getting re-injured or tight muscles due to spasms, it is recommended that you use a TShellz Wrap before activity to loosen up soft tissue (making it more flexible). Deep Heat is shown to increase the elasticity (flexibility) of the soft tissue in and around the treatment area, making it more pliable for activity and less likely to re-injure.

Sometimes we feel pain while doing a certain activity - should you still use STR Therapy? Using a TShellz Wrap in the morning before you start your day or before activity can help to boost blood-flow and reduce risk of further strain or injury. Use cold part-way through your day after you have been active so you can decrease pain and inflammation from the flare up.

Using a T•Shellz Wrap^® is a good long-term plan as this deep heat will not only stimulate healing (via enhanced blood flow) - it can also be used on a preventive basis to relax constricted soft tissue (increased elongation & flexibility of muscles, ligaments and tendons). STR Therapy indirectly enhances the local blood circulatory system, increasing the flow of nutrients your soft tissue needs to heal - oxygen, nutrients, anti-bodies and energy.

What Makes the TShellz Wrap Different?

The TShellz Wrap is a wholesome healer!

Instead of having the heat energy force itself into your body by heating up the skin first, the T_BWs emit an electromagnetic energy (EMR) that penetrates through the skin layer, and is absorbed deep down in your injured muscle. This means that instead of trying to heat from the outside in, you're using another method to to get the energy straight inside; EMR energy passes right through the skin and is absorbed by deep dense tissue - exactly where it is needed.

What exactly has changed the way heat therapy works? With modern medical advancements, electromagnetic energy is used to generate deep tissue heat for healing with Soft Tissue Repair Therapy (STR Therapy).

The deep heat provided via regular use of the TShellz Wrap means that:

• Your pain will be reduced.
• Your damaged tissue will heal at an accelerated rate while reducing your risk of re-injury.
• The area will have an increased range of motion and increased extensibility of collagen tissue. (Chapter 9 of "Therapeutic Heat and Cold", 4th edition. (amazon.com link Ed. Justus F. Lehmann, M.D., Williams, and Wilkin)

Our high quality wraps are registered with the FDA as medical devices which meet high manufacturing standards.

The way to get Deep Tissue Therapy is through use of a T•Shellz Wrap^®. As we mentioned before, other methods (like hot water bottles, hot baths, etc) increase blood flow on the surface / skin level. These methods need a LOT of time to even reach your deep tissue. And even if you were to use them this long, your skin would heat up to an uncomfortable level and you might even get burned!

Soft tissue injuries can quickly become debilitating. At a minimum, they will impede your ability to continue your activities like you did before your injury. When dealing with shoulder, knee, wrist, hip and ankle injuries - they often seriously interfere with everyday tasks like getting dressed, driving, working or reaching for anything.

When it comes to using ice and heat for treating a soft tissue injury, it's important to keep in mind that both ice AND heat are very effective ways to relieve pain and heal. Most people will think one is better over the other from their own experience or what a doctor / physical therapist has previously told them specific to a previous treatment plan.

The only difference between using ice and heat is that 1 is better for you at a specific time in your healing cycle. Ice is used first, right when you get your injury, to decrease pain / swelling and inflammation. Once swelling has reduced, we then focus on heat based treatments to increase blood flow circulation in deep tissue which will stimulate the body's healing response.

Each temperature therapy has its own unique benefits for healing of soft tissue, and when used together they provide a powerful advantage to long-term healing. You may already know that ice or heat feels better on your injury, and this could influence your decision too.

The bottom line is that ice and heat are exceptional, natural, pain relievers and healers for soft tissue injuries. When we say soft tissue, we are talking about muscles, tendons, ligaments, cartilage and bursas.

There are cases where some hip injuries will respond better to 1 temperature over the other. We want to help clear up the confusion so you know which is better (icy cold or gentle heat) and how to get the most from your treatment at home.

COLD (ice) is used to treat injuries or conditions that are red, hot, inflamed, swollen and suffering from tissue damage (a tear or recovering from surgery). Cold therapy is a natural / organic pain reliever that numbs pain right at the source of your injury. While doing this, the cold also stops cellular break-down and reduces the amount of scar tissue forming (this is very important after surgery).

When cold is applied to muscles, tendons and ligaments, soft tissue in the are will constrict and squeeze on the blood vessels to slow down your blood flow. This in turn clamps down on the amount of fluid leaking into your injured tissue, decreasing swelling. This is why cold is used immediately to treat acute (recent) injuries or re-injuries - basically, newly damaged soft tissue. The cold slows down your body to reduce the amount of damage happening to soft tissue and decrease the swelling. This cold also has a nice side benefit of numbing nerves in and around your injury, further decreasing your pain.

In the medical world this is something called 'Vasoconstriction'.

Cold compression works best to relieve pain, swelling and inflammation for new injuries, re-injury and during immediate post surgery recovery. Cold therapy should also be used during the first 24 - 72 hours of treatment, combined with resting your injury.

If you've been suffering for some time with a chronic soft tissue injury you should only use cold after activity causes you more pain or triggers more inflammatory response symptoms (red, hot, inflamed, swollen).. This would be when your the problematic area starts to hurt at the end of the day after you've been active. When used at this time, cold compression becomes a natural / organic pain reliever, targeting the localized site where you feel the pain.

Sometimes we feel pain while doing a certain activity - should you still use cold? Too much cold therapy can reduce your ability to heal correctly, because cold is a short term pain reliever, not a deep tissue healer.

This is important because once blood vessels are blocked or damaged, they can no longer carry oxygenated blood through the tissue and tissue cells begin to break-down. Without cold therapy, cellular break-down and tissue damage continue as cells don't get the oxygen they need to survive. By limiting the amount of damage done to your hip, you also limit the amount of healing that needs to occur. This is an important step to heal soft tissue injuries faster and with less pain!

Not Sure How to Use Ice and Heat
to Treat Muscle Pain?

We Have Answers that can Help...

The goal of this webpage is to give people the information they need to use simple, effective, natural treatments like ice and heat to heal their injury.

We can give you the information you need to understand how to use temperature therapy (at home) to relieve your muscle pain and heal your muscle strain. If you want to discuss options with one of our trained AidMyMuscle Advisers call our office toll-free at 1-866-237-9608 or Internationally at +1-705-532-1671.

There is no cost or obligation to this service.

We all want to begin healing as quickly as possible and with the right information, it can happen sooner than you think (it has for thousands of others who took the time to contact us).

You can be assured we will do our best to answer any question or concern you have. Living with muscle pain is never easy and we can help to provide answers about prevention, causes, treatment options, and ways to manage your injury for the short and long term.

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HEAT (warmth) is used after you've reduced your swelling / inflammation and the sharp pain is less intense (you have more of a dull / nagging ache and soft tissue tightness in the area). Warming up deep tissue is a natural way to encourage healing of muscles, tendons and ligaments. Increasing the temperature of this deep tissue will result in increased blood flow circulation as the body sends more blood there to attempt to remove this same heat. It's the blood in your body that will bring oxygen, nutrients, antibodies and energy to your injured soft tissue to help with healing.

When heat is applied to deep tissue, veins will start to get bigger (expand) to allow more blood flow through to your damaged or torn soft tissue. This in turn relaxes the area, making the tissue more flexible and elastic. This is why heat is used on older (chronic) injuries, to loosen tissue and bring in the blood flow needed for healing. Your body will begin to heal itself after it is injured - increasing your blood flow with heat will speed up this natural process - often surprisingly well.

Doctors usually call this process 'Vasodilation'.

A T•Shellz Wrap^® temperature treatment works best to increase blood flow circulation and stimulate healing for older (chronic) injuries, re-injury (after swelling has been reduced) and during long-term post surgery recovery. Warmer temperatures should be used approximately 3 to 5 days after you first have the injury. Heat should not be started for a least 2 weeks after surgery because inflammation levels will be very high as the healing process starts over again. Any use of heat should also be combined with gradual movement to stretch out your muscles, ligaments and tendons and increase range of motion in the joint.

If you have a chronic muscle injury that keeps getting re-injured you should use heat before activity to loosen up your muscle (making it more flexible). When used at this time the warm temperatures naturally extend the elasticity (elastic-nature) of your muscle tissue, making it more movable / pliable for activity.

Sometimes we feel pain while doing a certain activity - should you still use heat? Using heat in the morning before you start your day or before activity can help to boost the healing process and reduce your risk of re-injury. Too much heat (especially when you suffer a set-back with swelling / inflammation) can make your inflammation worse. Cold treatments with a Cold Compress or Ice Pack should be used part-way through your day when you suffer from on-going pain and inflammation as a natural pain-reliever.

Using heat is a good long-term plan because it will continuously assist in your body's healing process. It can also be used on a preventive basis to relax constricted soft tissue. We use warm temperatures / heat to speed up the process of baking something in the oven or melting the snow outside, your injury is no different. Heat will speed up the natural healing rate in your muscles and tendons by increasing blood flow circulation. This in turn brings all the components your tissue needs to heal - oxygen, nutrients, anti-bodies and energy.

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For most cases of significant soft tissue injury, the treatment won't just end once the pain is gone. Stretching is also an important part of muscle and tendon healing - and it's the final step needed when healing your injury with conservative treatment methods.

You would be surprised by how many people there are that don't understand the importance of stretching a deep tissue injury. Before returning to full activity after a muscle/tendon injury, physical therapists prescribe gentle stretching of the affected area... This is because stretching an important part in recovery from any soft tissue injury. Consistent stretching is one of few solutions available to break up scar tissue that forms in your soft tissue as it heals.

Stretching with use of a Cold Compress or Ice Pack and T•Shellz Wrap^® is even better!

There is a Unique Formula used for Recovery from Muscle Injuries...

We're going to let you in on a key piece of information... In every physical therapy appointment your physical therapist will use conservative treatments, massage, manual manipulation and/or stretching exercises to give you this Professional 3-Step Treatment Formula:

For this 1st step many physical therapists will use heat, manual manipulation, deep tissue massage, clinical ultrasound devices or a warm bath to warm up soft tissue in the injury area. The goal during this first step is to increase healthy blood flow circulation and relax the affected area.

'Warming up' your hip will increase the elastic-nature of your muscle fibers making it much easier to stretch and when needed, hold the stretch. This will also extend the amount that you will be able to stretch your muscles.

Use a T•Shellz Wrap^® for 15 to 20 minutes at least half an hour before stretching. A T•Shellz Wrap^® will promote Soft Tissue Repair Therapy (Soft Tissue Therapy) - a therapy that will increase blood flow to the affected area while warming up and relaxing the soft tissue. Soft Tissue Therapy will make your muscle fibers more elastic and pliable, allowing for more ease of movement when you're stretching and/or exercising.

Continued treatment with Soft Tissue Therapy will also deliver much-needed oxygen, nutrients, antibodies and energy to your hip. This will boost your own natural healing ability and speed up your time for recovery.

The main goal of physical therapy is to exercise (stretch out) the affected joint to improve flexibility and range of motion. After the physical therapist has warmed up the joint, they'll get you to do a series of exercises that are focused on stretching out the muscles, tendons and ligaments.

Sometimes cardiovascular exercise, like using a stationary bike or treadmill, will be recommended under the supervision of your physical therapist.

Why are soft tissue injuries so hard to over come? In two words - scar tissue.

Soft tissue is meant to be tough yet flexible, ready to work and move extreme forces in everyday activities. Damaged tissue heals with scar tissue - little tiny band-aids that overlap each other in and around the injury with the sole purpose of mending the injury. Unfortunately, scar tissue is quite rigid and inflexible; as a result you will feel the effects of scar tissue through stiffness, tightness, weakness and tiredness in the area. Scar tissue means you will lose flexibility and the joint will tighten up on you.

Scar tissue can form fast to bring together the edges of a tendon, ligament of the tissue tear, but working fast doesn't mean that the job's done right. When scar tissue forms it doesn't come together as neatly as regular (healthy) tissue would. Scar tissue fibers will lay down over top of your tear in a cluttered, messy and jumbled up way.

Stretching helps to break up scar tissue, ultimately reducing its troublesome effects on your body - yes, it is often quite painful but ultimately necessary to gain back flexibility. The goal is to minimize scar tissue growth and to do this we recommend that you be proactive in dealing with your muscle injury.

Toward the end of your appointment your physical therapist may introduce cold compression, acupuncture, or TENS to relax the affected area after intense stretching and exercise.

It may seem hard to believe, but our T•Shellz Wraps^®, ebooks and accessory products will assist you in recovering from your injury by reducing your swelling and inflammation induced pain, maximizing localized blood flow, and increasing the flexibility / range of motion in the hip.

Here at AidMyMuscle we pride ourselves in helping you with your healing and recovery process. Everyone at AidMyMuscle has tested and used the products, finding solutions to conditions that do not fit into the norm.

Product Advisors are available 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Eastern Standard Time Monday to Friday.

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During your recovery, you will probably have to modify and/or eliminate any activities that cause pain or discomfort at the location of your soft tissue injury until the pain and inflammation settle. Always consult your doctor and/or Physical Therapist before using any of our outstanding products, to make sure they are right for you and your condition. The more diligent you are with your treatment and rehabilitation, the faster you will see successful results!

Living with pain is never easy and we encourage you to call us with any questions you have related to your hamstring injury. We will do our best to help.