Ice, Ice Child: The Harm Skurt and Freeze Sleeve
In case you do an exercise or sport lengthy sufficient, with sufficient dedication (or not, because it had been) damage of some kind is inevitable. And meaning you’re greater than more likely to want ice sooner or later. Perhaps to quell an achy shoulder affected by overuse or to extinguish the fireplace of an acute damage – like a tough fall in your board the place your knee takes a pounding.
Amongst sure circles, there may be debate in regards to the usefulness of the outdated R.I.C.E. protocol for treating acute accidents – Relaxation, Ice, Compression and Elevation. Some research appear to counsel that strategy isn’t actually as helpful because it as soon as was thought. I’m not a doctor, so I’m not going to postulate on that. In case you’re curious, Google it.
My very own anecdotal expertise is that the majority, if not all of my medical doctors nonetheless advocate using ice in sure cases. If nothing else, it will possibly assist with ache.And it makes you are feeling higher.
And I’d know recently. My knee is tousled. A mix of age, overuse and the dreaded “raise and twist” mistake while heaving a heavy load into the trash dumpster and I’m sidelined. Ice has been my finest pal recently, as prescribed by my ortho.
However ice is messy. Plastic baggies sweat and leak, baggage of frozen peas and corn don’t at all times keep in place. Fortuitously there are two alternate options to these strategies that I’m discovering very useful as of late: The Harm Skurt and the Freeze Sleeve. Right here’s a have a look at each of them.
Harm Skurt
The product consists of a stretchy sleeve of fabric with pockets of gel capsules sewn in. It has elastic on each ends and is straightforward to drag on and off. The baffles of gel conform to a sure extent round no matter appendage you want to deal with. The design is supposed to reinforce flexibility and usefulness.
The Harm Skurt is available in completely different sizes to accommodate completely different physique elements – elbows, ankles,knees,thighs – and physique shapes. The can be utilized as a “flat pack” for more durable to succeed in areas just like the low again.
And the material decisions are available in enjoyable colours and patterns. If warmth is what you want, the Harm Skurt will be micowaved for that possibility.
I like the benefit of use with the Harm Skurt and the colour decisions are good, however I’ve discovered a few cons to the product.
To start with, it doesn’t present a lot compression. For my knee, the compression feels good, together with the chilly.
Second, the a number of gel packs really feel actually heavy and off steadiness. That’s created some uncomfortable strain on essentially the most tender a part of the knee. The distribution of the packs does create some voids in protection – which could truly be a plus, holding the world iced from not feeling uncomfortably chilly.
However right here’s the deal breaker – I’ve had a number of of those packs leak after simply a few makes use of. And I’m not the one one. A major variety of of us have complained about the identical in on-line product critiques. Unsure what the difficulty is -but having that blue goo throughout every little thing is just not nice.
Freeze Sleeve
After my second Harm Skurt leaked, I seemed for an alternate and located the Freeze Sleeve. The idea is identical – reusable, freezable materials encased in a tube of squishy cloth that’s simple to drag on and over a knee or elbow or ankle.
The most important distinction between the Freeze Sleeve and the Harm Skurt is the dearth of gel capsules in baffles. The Freeze Sleeve has no “useless” spots – and supplies complete, 360 diploma cryo-coverage. And it doesn’t really feel unbalanced and heavy, nor does it irritate the delicate areas of my puffy knee.
It additionally supplies extra compression than the Harm Skurt. So the over all expertise, for me a minimum of, has been extra intense and ache relieving.
The colour and sample decisions are a bit extra limiting that the Harm Skurt’s choices, and you can not use it for warmth remedy.
However, once I want chilly, the Freeze Sleeve is the one I discover myself reaching for essentially the most.
Each merchandise are a bit dear however think about their re-usability. It’s nicely price it to me to know I don’t need to mess with cumbersome chunks of ice or marvel how lengthy that bag of peas has been within the freezer once I have to calm the ache down.