Treat Your Wounds with a DIY Hotpack
Thursday, June 10, 2010 by Shep McAllister 
Have some rice and an old sock? Of course you do.Injuries happen in college. Maybe you were exercising during finals, or even involved in a fender-bender. Hell, sometimes you may wake up with one you don't even remember getting. Unfortunately, the typical dorm room doesn't have the fully-stocked triage kit that mom was so good at maintaining. I recently banged up my leg a bit, and I guess my girlfriend got a little sick of my whining and melodramatic limping, so she whipped up this brilliant little hotpack for me.
You'll need a small bag of dry rice, which should be easy to find at just about any campus convenience store, and a sock... that's it. Use an old elastic tube sock if you have one, but if shorter socks are all you keep, find a rubber band. All you need to do is empty the rice into the sock until the bulge feels about the right size, tie off the end (either with the rubber band, or a simple knot), and pop it in your microwave for two minutes or so.
Your room will smell like rice pudding for a little while, but the hot pack can hold its temperature for a surprisingly long time, and can be used again and again. Just apply it to your injury for about twenty minutes at a time, and be sure to wrap it in a paper towel or something to protect your skin.
Reader Comments (7)
Such a clever idea!!!
I'd suggest not heating the sock with the rubber band attached. It might make your room end up smelling like rice pudding AND burnt rubber.
If you need a DIY COLDPACK, best thing I've found is a plastic bag of frozen peas. Slap it on the counter a couple of times to break the ice holding the peas together. Then it will mold itself around your body curves wherever a cold pack is needed. Works on heads, ankles and everything in between. After using, cook and eat your coldpack.
to get rid of the smell add a bit of lavender, it also helps you relax
The lavendar is a good idea.
Also, an old pillow case works with a medium or large bag of rice and is better for broad areas like back aches. This will avoid burning rubber in your microwave too. (Yuck!)
Caution: For a new injury you never want to try heat first. Ice is always the safe bet because swelling slows the healing and causes some of the pain. Heat can make swelling much worse and create an even bigger problems.
If you feel no relief at all with ice, or the pain is worse, then try heat. Old, stiff injuries often respond to both, alternating heat and ice every 10 minutes, always ending with the ice so that any swelling is reduced.
Ice prevents big, ugly bruising too. Just put the ice pack on for 20 minutes as soon as you can on the day of the bump. Not mandatory, but try for 2 or 3 times that same day. I've even had it work the next day, oddly enough.
I've been wondering if rice might make an OK ice pack as well. Since it has enough insulation to hold heat, the same should be true for cold, no?
Being a pea HATER, or any frozen vegetables for that matter, I really don't keep them in my freezer. At home, I actually keep two soft ice packs in the freezer for the occasional back ache. The cooler packs that get hard in the freezer work great if you store them in the fridge too. But I bet the rice sock, frozen overnight, would work fine.