(See the bottom for generally understood contraindicated conditions, benefits to hydrotherapy, and dos/don'ts to hydro.)
Cryotherapy - Heat
Essential Oils(bottom of the page)
CryoTherapy
In Cryotherapy it is understood that if you correctly ice an injury you will reduce inflammation and increase the speed of healing.Icing instructions:
NEVER ice more than 20 minutes. Your body's instinct is to reheat itself as a precaution to serious health problems such as tissue damage.
Acute: If you have recently injured yourself (within the last three days), you would be wise to ice three times a day. Take an ice cube or cryocup and apply it directly to the skin, moving in small circles to prevent skin burn, and use a towel to dry drips from the cube.
1. Short - Apply this action for less than a minute (30 seconds) to apply vasoconstriction (aka reduce inflammation and increase circulation/metabolism).
2. Long - Apply this action for over a minute and up to 20 (aka reduce circulation/metabolism).
3. For large area submersion make sure that the temperature is around 55 F or 13 C at the lowest.
3. After the Acute stage, and into the Chronic, you may alternate 20 minutes ice and 30 minutes heat. Always end with ice.
3 Steps to Pain (1 minute plus ice application)
- Cold - sensation
- Pain - with possible aching/burning
- Numbness - pain cessation
Hydro Heat Treatments
Use heat that is bearable. Temperature transfers 25x faster in water-beware. If it feels too hot it is; put a towel in between you and the heat source or change the temperature by adding cool water.
After you are sure that there is not inflammation or infection in an area (and it has been at least three days from the activating factor) use the following heat treatments:
1. Short - Less than 5 minutes (increase circulation/metabolism)
2. Long - More than 5 minutes and LESS than 30 (reduce circulation & increase metabolism)
3. If you have a heating device use 100-104 F or 38-40 C temperatures for hot treatments.
4. After the Acute stage, and into the Chronic, you may alternate 20 minutes ice and 30 minutes heat. Always end with ice.
The Do and Do Nots of heat & ice treatments:
- Do not eat big meals within 90 minutes of an intense ice or heat treatment. Major digestion and hydrotherapy can cause lightheadedness.
- Do not use ice treatments (use caution) if you have acute asthma, cold allergies, Raynaud's Phenomenon.
- Always do your hydro treatments at the time of day you feel most energetic.
- Pay attention to your body.
- ALWAYS end with cold
- Allow yourself time to reach homeostasis before you get up and do things (after a treatment).
- Hydro on large body parts lowers the amount of intensity you can handle (either time or temperature).
- NEVER apply heat if you suspect a burn, sunburn, known malignancy, varicose veins, hypertension, acute inflammation/bruising, heat sensitivities, infection, or bleeding.
- When in doubt use cryo (cold). It can be used for any stage of injury.
Negative Reaction to Hydrotherapy can be:
If you see any of the following reactions IMMEDIATELY END your treatment or modify it for more comfort:- Cyanosis: blue lips/nail beds
- Red marbling of skin - a small area is acceptable, a limb is not
- Pain that is bone chilling or lasts longer than 2-3 minutes is NOT okay
- Uncontrollable shivering/lasts longer than 2 minutes
- Cold extremities
- Congestion in head. If this happens to you sit up and use a warm your feet while using a cool compress on your head
- Dizziness or lightheadedness
- faintness, fatigue, nausea - if this happens lie down and sip luke-warm water.
General Contraindications
(this means that you may/might be able to use this treatment under the supervision of a qualified practitioner).
Rheumatoid arthritis, pregnancy, multiple sclerosis, heart disorders, severe kidney infection, diabetes (advanced), peripheral neuropathy, uncontrolled high or low blood pressure, infectious skin disorders, cancer, vascular disease/peripheral vascular disease, alcohol or drug intoxication, undiagnosed illness, whiplash, and hiv/aids.
Benefits of Cold Water
- *Analgesic
- Anesthetic
- *Antispasmodic (interrupts the pain cycle)
- Burn Management
- *Stimulant (short cold only)
- Tonic (improves muscle tone)
Benefits of Hot Water
- *Analgesic
- *Antispasmodic
- Antiseptic (boiling water is not used on skin, it is used to disinfect things)
- Diaphoretic (through sweating)
- Expectorant (loosens congestion)
- Sedative (relaxation)
- *Stimulant
*for both hot and cold treatments
Confused about which oil company to go to?
I'll have my (Kristy) say and be done with it. I LOVE essential oils! It is nice to have a medicine cabinet in my home that absorbs quickly into the skin, lungs, and mouth. Obviously I have to know amounts because it is a self medication process and I don't want to hurt myself or my family. (Learn correct dilution through the book aromatherapy & essential oils handbook for everyday wellness.)
I have looked into essential oil companies out of the request of a client of mine. She wanted to know if nativeamericannutritionals.com was a good company and to answer her I had to know about as many companies as I could. I energy tested sites, read their stories, and even have a few oils from a eight different companies. When it came down to it my all-time-favorite was PURE, second is Camdengrey.com and third is Nativamericannutritionals.com.
As a LMT I took great care in researching these companies. There is a lot of hype surrounding some of them due to the nature of the business models of most of them. I also have used and smelled the oils from 9 different companies and I hands down love PURE, camdengrey and NAT. I have as yet to find better than these. The first you must become a club member to purchase it online.
Beware of oil companies that tell you to take the oils internally. Purity is not the sign of being able to be internal, it is the sign of being so concentrated that you must dilute to save your liver, not get burned (lemon oil is the number one oil to get burned with in the ER), and not waste your money. It actually is a great thing to purchase PURE oils and then dilute them so that they are affective and last a long time. If you use most of your oils neat (without dilution) you are probably spending too much on oils.
Beware of putting too much oil in your diffuser. You can cause reactions similar to carbon monoxide if you have too many oil drops. Cinnamon, specifically, in any blend can have this affect. You can also cause headaches.
Last warning: Check every single oil and every single blend for allergies.
Oil Companies: The first three are not MLM's which is a massive plus for me. The first is a shopping club, and like Costco, is totally worth it. There are others that aren't mlm's but I don't love their energies or purities; that said, if I can't find an oil in my favorite companies I will got o auracacia.com or one of the others and
- Melaleuca.com (the manufacturer & club, not the oil, has my personal favorite oils for both purity and energy!)
- NativeAmericanNutritionals.com (Pure oils, both singles and blends)
- Camdengrey.com (great wholesaler with pure oils)
- doTERRA and Be Young (I really don't like these companies. Sorry Orey, I'm an energy sensitive and both of these companies have an energy that I won't tolerate.)
- Butterfly oils (I've heard they pray & sing over their oils and that it is sometimes pure, sometimes not)
- AuraCacia.com
- OriginalSwissAromatics.com
- Frontier Natural Products Co-op (frontier coop.com)
- AromaTherapeutix.com
- Mountainroseherbs.com
- Simplers Botanical Company (simplers.com)
- Massage Warehouse
- Young Living (I have multiple sources declaring that this is never a pure oil company. However, I have only personally tested two oils and have only subjective information from previous co-owners of the company.)
- pacificinstituteofaromatherapy.com (course on aromatherapy French-style)
I do not approve of most of them due to lack of purity or caustic energy associated with the company. The top three are in order of preference. After that it is random ordering.
Sometimes it is difficult to find a specific oil and so I revert to one of the others for my recipe needs. I use Stephanie L Tourles Hands On Healing Remedies which has 150 recipes for herbs and oils. I also love love love aromatherapy & essential oils handbook for everyday wellness.
This post is not meant to offend-it is meant to inform (except maybe ameo which I think is a scam, I don't care if they take offense).
As a consumer of any product I urge you to research how to use the oils so that you do not hurt your family. There is a resource page on nativeamericannutritionals.com that has books for your reference.
It is clear that Modern Essentials by Aroma Tools is biased to doTERRA, (probably by someone who independently distributes it and uses their company) because it does not talk about oils that doTERRA does not sell. still, it's an okay resource. It tell you to use oils without dilution too often and is therefore possibly causing liver damage.
Thieves is an ancient recipe said to have protective power against disease.
For amounts and instructions refer to Tourles' book
Lemon Balm
Peppermint
Rosemary
Sage
Thyme
Yarrow
Cinnamon
Lemon
Cloves
Eucalyptus radiata (I happen to be allergic, so making my own helps avoid this.)
