Ice! The hot new anti-inflammatory treatment

Cheap vodka and a couple of Ziplock bags can be used to make
a flexible ice pack!

I recently had a six-month blood pressure check with my family doctor and started whining about my periodic sciatic and neck pain due to arthritis. I told her I was taking low-dose aspirin for ET, and that I didn't want to take a bunch of pills. She suggested ice.

And, by golly, ice is my new best friend! This also might appeal to those of you interested in alternative therapies for aches and pains.

I have an ice bag (the kind you used to see on the heads of people with hangovers in old-fashioned cartoons). They're pretty cheap and widely available at your local chain pharmacy or big box store in the medical supplies aisle. Some even come in designer patterns.

There are directions for making a flexible ice pack out of cheap vodka in this hilarious and useful life hack article, "12 Things Cheap Vodka Is Good for Besides the Obvious."

No Smirnoff's in the house? You can make your own with a couple of Ziploc bags (put ice in one bag of a convenient size and put that bag in another one, sucking the air out with a soda straw as you seal).

If you're using Ziplocs with ice (or vodka), wrap the bags in a thin towel or cloth and apply for about 20 minutes. Much more than 20 minutes and you risk freezing your skin. You can do this a few times a day. I find it works pretty quickly and relief is comparable to eating pills.

So why not just pop some Motrin for your occasional hitches in the old Get-Along? News from the University of California-Davis outlines some recent concerns about NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) regarding strokes and damage to cardiac tissue. Aspirin is a different class of NSAID because it reduces clotting, but it's a drug that should be taken with care. (There's more info about NSAIDs in layman's terms from Harvard here.)

As I was looking at info about NSAIDs, I found a study in Clinical and Applied Thrombosis/Hemostasis (whew) back in 2001, that seemed to indicate that a low-dose (81 mg.) aspirin for clot risks every third day might be almost as effective as taking one every day.

That's a question I want to talk about with my cardiologist and hematologist when I see them this fall.

Meantime, how often are you taking aspirin? Any consequences or info from your hematologist? Offer feedback here or on our Facebook page.

Be well!

Related: Natural treatments and ET

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