Taking anti-inflammatory medications like naproxen or ibuprofen will help decrease the inflammation that occurs, but if you don’t want to mask the pain with these medications contrast bath is a very good alternative. If you decrease the pain with the anti-inflammatory medications but continue to participate in an activity, which causes the inflammation, you are not allowing your body to heal naturally.

Contrast Bath or Hydrotherapy also takes advantage of water’s unique ability to store and transmit both cold and heat. Cold-based hydrotherapies, such as ice packs and cold compresses have what is known as a “depressant” effect on your body. Cold decreases normal activity, thus, constricting blood vessels by numbing nerves, which pushes lymph fluids away from the treated area.

On the other hand, heat-based hydrotherapies, such as whirlpools and hot compresses, have the opposite effect. As the body attempts to throw off the excess heat and keep body temperature from rising, dilation of blood vessels occurs, providing increased circulation to the area being treated, thus, bringing blood nutrients and oxygen needed to nourish body-part being treated.

These theories on hydrotherapy have not been proven to work nor not to work, so with that said, I personally have used contrast bath for treating my hands and whole body as part of my health regime for past 11 plus years as a massage therapist. Preventing inflammation or reducing inflammation is a medical industry bankroll. It is the number one prescribed medication. With proper rest, diet and exercise we can stop inflammation from forming.

Equipment Needed:

• Two deep buckets or other receptacles deep enough to completely covering your wrist and preferably up to your elbow you would like to use in the contrast bath. Buckets can be replaced with a kitchen sink that has two compartments. One for HOT and one for COLD (ice can be used here).

• Thermometer – a cooking thermometer will suffice (optional)

• Timer – watch or clock

Procedure:

• One bucket should be 2/3 filled with water at a temperature of between 95-105°F, and the other 2/3 filled with water at a temperature of between 55-65°F. Or as hot and cold as you can tolerate. The greater the contrast the better (but not necessary for this to be effective)

• Place the hands/wrist to be treated in the hot water, leave it there for 1 minute, then place the part in the cold water and leave it there for one minute. Alternate from the hot to the cold water for a period of 10 minutes, beginning and ending with the cold water.

• The ratio can be 2:1, hot to cold if you want to speed up the process. Place the part that needs to be treated in Cold water for 30 seconds than alternate to Hot for 1 minute. Go back to Cold for 1 minute than alternate to Hot for 2 minute. Increase by 30 seconds when you go back to Hot every time. Do this for about 4 times.

Here is a Method of Making your Own Ice Packs. This is an alternative to contrast bath when you want to reduce inflammation/swelling and pain relief.

A quick and easy recipe to make a reusable slushy ice pack is to combine 4 parts rubbing alcohol to 1 part water and ice cubes in a plastic seal up baggie (freezer bag) Place this in the freezer for a few hours and when it is ready you will have an inexpensive ice pack.

The reason this works is that the specific temperature of the rubbing alcohol is low enough that it will not freeze in a normal freezer allowing the contents of the bag to form slush rather than a solid.

I also found that if you take dishwashing liquid and freeze that, it will become slushy as well. Make sure to double bag it to make sure it doesn’t leak.

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