warming up

Massachusetts is currently digging itself out of an enormous amount of snow which makes me want spring. It also makes icing my hip not too appealing when it's 10 degrees outside. Thankfully at PT recently I've been getting heat instead of ice. It's pretty wonderful to be wrapped up in two enormous heat packs and four towels in January. Getting good, deep heat on a hip can be difficult but my physical therapist has come up with a method that I am a very big fan of. I think this could be pretty easily done at home with two hot water bottles or two microwaveable heat packs. It doesn't fall off, it gets heat around the entire hip AND it's great for bilateral hippies like me.

1. Take a flat sheet and fold it into a rope and place it across the bed
2. Place two heat packs of the sheet with their ends touching so they make a big rectangle
3. Take bath or hand towels, depending on how big your heat packs are and layer them on top of the packs. (The number of towels depends on hot your heat packs are and how much heat you can tolerate)
4. Do your best princess and the pea impersonation and lie down on the towels
5. Tie the sheet around your waist (you can put a wedge or some pillows under your knees if you like) 

ice is nice

Maybe it's the weather outside or maybe it's because I've been having more pain lately...who knows, but ice seemed like a good topic for today.

In my opinion ice is great for hip pain and really great for post-op hip pain. Lots of people swear by the  Game Ready ice machine. It plugs into the wall and requires no pumping and allows you to adjust the temperature. pretty nifty. After my arthroscopy I was sent home with a low tech version of the game ready. You fill the cooler with water and ice cubes and squeeze the bulb to get ice water to flow into the the pad which is strapped to your hip. Pretty good relief for being very low tech! I also have a big therapeutic gel ice pack that I bought from a physical therapy place. It's very helpful but not as good as a machine for post op when you need around the clock ice. ( they can be a bit pricey and a bag of frozen peas does the job too!)