For as long as I can remember, I have used a heating pad, either electric or microwave heated, to ease a variety of aches and pains. Most recently I’ve used one on a nagging shoulder. Heat has long been a comfort to me.
We all have experienced the soothing comfort of a hot shower or bath after a long day of strenuous work or exercise. And while ice is usually recommended for early treatment of injuries or swelling, cold numbness does not begin to match the alleviation of aches quite like heat does.
However when I began physical therapy for my shoulder issue, I was introduced to moist heat in a heating pad. After the exercises, I’m rewarded with a moist heating pad place on my shoulder. I noticed the difference immediately. Moist heat penetrates deep into an infected area. Could you hear me saying “Ahh…?”
Add to these facts, my stepbrother, a plastic surgeon who recently underwent shoulder surgery himself, says that he uses moist heat with some of his patients. And he told me an amazing fact. He said that his dad, my stepfather, the beloved physician in Jacksonville, Texas, for more than a half century, believed that moist heat could cure “90 percent of the world’s ills.” After all early in his practice, hot water bottles were a popular treatment for aches.
Bob and I, an only child, were married with a 18-month-old daughter when my widowed mother married the doctor, a widower, who had six children younger than I. I never lived in their home, but my mother and I talked by phone frequently, especially after Bob and I moved to Georgia, a thousand miles away. Early on, she was the one who had introduced me to the benefits of a heating pad. I cannot believe she had not passed along his appreciation for moist heat. It remains a mystery for me because we frequently checked with my stepfather for second opinions on health issues.
However, we’re never too old to learn new lessons, especially if those lessons are age-old ones that continue to be pertinent.
My stepbrother said I didn’t need a fancy heating pad, just place my regular heating pad atop a wet cloth laid over the affected area. I tried his method and it worked; but, it was messy. I much preferred the therapist’s moist heating pad. And so I now own my own moist heating pad, one I heat in the microwave because the electric moist heating pads work more like the wet cloth method.
I now consider sitting with the moist heating pad on my shoulder as much a part of the therapy as the daily exercises. I must admit, I see improvement in the use of my right arm with exercise each day. And at the end of all of the exercises, a moist heat treatment is a reward in itself.
The National Institute of Health says, “Heat has been used therapeutically for thousands of years. It offers immediate pain relief and can increase circulation to speed the healing process after injury. For this reason, it is popular for use on many types of pain including joint and muscle pain as well as soft tissue…Clinically, it has been shown that moist heat penetrates deep tissue faster than dry heat.”
According to the ptHealth website, “moist heat can penetrate the skin faster and deeper, getting right to the muscle - the root of your pain.”
The Arthritis Foundation adds, “heat dilates the blood vessels, stimulates blood circulation and reduces muscle spasms.”
And as I place my moist heating pad on my shoulder, I nod in agreement. We all expect modern medicine to bring instant cures to all of our health issues. More times than not, healing requires time. But this is one instance when I have been able to say I see improvement each day.
2022