So you pulled a muscle or put your back out and you think you’re gunna die of massive excruciating pain, and the doc or physical therapist tells you to use cold packs on it. Trouble with cold packs? They melt.
A favorite way to make a cold pack is to use a bag of frozen peas or corn. This is great, but a) peas and corn melt down into slush pretty quickly, and b) oh horror of frugal horrors, it wastes food!
I’ve been folding up a washcloth or several paper towels placing them flat inside a baggie, and sticking that in the freezer. This solves the food waste issue, but when you first take them out, they’re board-hard. After a few minutes the cloth or paper toweling will defrost enough to mold around the sore spot, and that is extremely nice…for about five minutes.
The frozen washcloth gambit
Shortly, these gadgets warm right up to body temperature. Annoying.
Try this instead: dried beans. Get some bulk dried beans, such as pinto beans or peruanos — very cheap at any good ethnic store or even at Costco — put two or three cups into a ziplock bag, and freeze. The longer the better.
Bean baggie!
After a few hours, apply the frozen beanbags to your aches and pains, in the usual mode.
Dried beans take longer to defrost than frozen peas or corn, and they also can be molded around a sore joint or limb. Lentils would work, too.
Remember to wear a T-shirt or wrap the bag in a kitchen towel to protect your skin from the cold. Don’t apply any extremely cold pack directly to your skin.
A friend of mine iced for hours with no break and gave himself frostbite, aka misery for months. Ice no more than 20 min in 2 hrs. And don’t forget what the Chinese medicine practitioners always say, “ice is for the dead”.
🙂 I wish this back pain would die.
That’s the sort of thing my father would’ve done: he was one of those folks who figure if a little’s good, a lot must be better.