Best Ice Therapy Machines in the UK | 2022 Comprehensive Buyer’s Guide

Today, I have an interesting thing to talk about, and it’s something I think a lot of people don’t even know exists. I didn’t until I wound up having to use this technology, and as much as I had to be dragged kicking and screaming into using it, it certainly had a quality of life impact for me that I can’t deny.

What I want to talk about today is ice therapy. When you think of therapy, you tend to imagine maybe being in water for part of it (I’m not a swimmer, so that was something I refused uncompromisingly), medications, and the use of massage and heat. Well, heat can be used to relax muscles and dull pain, but some forms of muscle and joint pain cannot be combated with heat, as I’ll explain in just a moment.

Ice therapy makes you probably imagine soaking in a tub full of ice cubes or ice water, like an organ theft victim in an urban legend. Thankfully, no, while old approaches to this in the Victorian and Edwardian periods did indeed use this approach due to no other way to do so, modern ice therapy uses machines that deliver very chilled water through hoses and pads, with no direct skin contact. Some of that hypothermic cold is reduced, thus making it far less unpleasant than you’d initially assume.

So, let’s first talk about why ice therapy, extreme cold in general, is ever a good idea for fighting pain. The biggest doubt in the minds of most is how badly one’s arthritis or old injuries can act up when it becomes very cold, myself among them. That’s ambient cold, not targeted cold, which is a whole different ballgame.

Inflammation is a painful, excruciating thing, and is one of the prime mechanics behind things like arthritis, mobility problems, muscular issues and other ailments that plague both the young and old alike. Inflammation is partially brought about by excessive blood and tissue overstimulation, as well as retention of fluids and some other basic organic malfunctions.

There are a number of treatments for targeting inflammation, such as muscle creams, aspirin (and other blood thinners), antioxidants and potassium, as well as some use of organic sources of collagen, all intended to reduce the bunching up and swelling.

However, one of the most effective things to use against inflammation and dulling the associated pain, is applied cold. It reduces blood flow, it dulls nerves, and it causes fluids to evacuate from areas where they’ve bunched together. This is why the mix of heat and cold in muscle creams, albeit a chemically-artificial thermal nature, is as effective as it actually is.

Now, as I said a moment ago, the basic principle of this, albeit with less of the underlying biology understood, has been known for a long time. The original application was archaic and unpleasant with, yes, bathing in ice water or sitting in tubs of ice. This was not only a somewhat dangerous and unpleasant experience, but a costly one in a time before refrigerant technology could be mastered to manufacture ice or cold water on a whim.

Ice therapy machines are a modern implementation of this, and it’s not that new. The earliest uses of these date back to affordable electric motors, decent skin-safe rubber manufacturing, and that refrigerant technology I alluded to a moment ago. It’s not really possible to pin down exactly where and when this technology was actually first put into applied use, let alone on the market, but they’ve been around.

This is a good thing, it’s given people time to refine the approach over many decades of research and development. How do they work?

Does this technology work, or is it just another alternative medicine concept, though? Well, that depends on how you define it working, in all honesty. It’s not a cure for anything. Arthritis and other inflammatory issues for the moment, have no known cures, and ice therapy is no exception. What it can do is help with pain management, which along with proper medication, can greatly reduce the symptoms of inflammation and arthritis, and provide a good aid to quality of life in light of these ailments.

However, there are people who shouldn’t use this heavily, chief among them being severe heart patients already on a lot of blood thinners. This also applies to diabetics and people with severe circulatory issues, as extreme cold like this can actually be harmful.

People with sensitivity to cold in general should also avoid this, and it shouldn’t be used on injuries like fractures or sprains, as it will actually slow down healing (though a physician may cite an exception to this in your case should severe inflammation be a symptom of the sprain).

This is all to say, it’s not ideal for everyone, but for the purposes for which it’s actually designed, it does indeed work quite well, and can do quite a bit to relieve the misery and agony of arthritis and inflammation.

I have a couple stories related to this, one extolling the virtues of it, and one warning about how this may not be the right treatment for everyone. We’ll start with mine.

Let me preface this with two problems I have – I don’t like things being attached to me, or tightly wrapped around me. I wear loose clothing, I avoid jewelry, I just don’t like the feel of things “on” me. I also absolutely detest the cold. I’m from southern California originally, and I presently live in Florida. While excruciating heat and humidity is equally miserable, and I do find my central air to be a godsend for at least half the year here, any temperature below about 50 degrees, I consider to be just unbearable and horrid.

Thus, when I broke my leg in a nasty car wreck, and after the initial healing, I was told to use ice therapy as a way to fight the inflammation and aches, I wasn’t on board with the idea. Wrap a thing around me, and then let it apply frigid cold to a sensitive, hurting part of my body? Yeah no thank you.

And so, I spent a long time looking for other treatments. I actually went through a thankfully brief addiction to painkillers in my effort to fight the pain without what I was sure would just be another kind of pain.

Finally, I gave in, and tried ice therapy, expecting to hate it. Well okay, I didn’t love the experience itself, I don’t like cold or tight things on me. But it wasn’t the horrible, miserable, near-torture that I honestly thought it would be. The mild discomfort of cold and something wrapped around part of me was well worth the relief it brought, and this is why I will insist to anyone like me that hates the cold and tightness, to still try this if they suffer from inflammation, because trust me, no matter how much you hate the cold and tight stuff, it’s nothing compared to that inflammatory pain you suffer from. The effects last a while, though for myself, I notice my skin is a little numb and odd-feeling after using ice therapy, and the phantom sensation of the pad kind of sticks with you.

The other one is a warning, specifically for the previously-mentioned people on blood thinners. This is somewhat funny, simply because of the absurdity of it, but it’s also a miracle that it didn’t go so much worse than it did. My mother, rest her soul, became a wee bit plump in her later years, though far from what I’d call fat. This is important, because in the mid 90s, she became obsessed with every fad diet on the market, chief among them that ridiculous Atkins nonsense, wherein you can gorge yourself on bacon but god forbid you have a bite of fruit. What?

So, on top of being type II diabetic, which is the milder form, and thus being on a blood thinner, she also had a severely-compromised immune system due to a lack of vitamin C (a crucial enzyme for immune system efficiency). Well, she sprained her knee, and she was one of those rare exceptions where inflammation needed combated by ice therapy. She didn’t use a machine – they were costly back then, but just a rubber water pack with ice water in it.

The cold, mixed with her deficient diet and blood thinners, caused her to catch a cold, which she suffered from for nearly a year, giving the cold back to herself multiple times in a row. At the time, I laughed, because I’d told her that diet was bloody stupid, and “see, I told you so”. Now, though, I realize how a woman of her age could’ve been seriously hurt or even killed by this combination. Use this treatment wisely!