Q Do I choose hot or cold compresses for back pain? A: Generally speaking, you should choose to apply hot compresses. However, when the pain starts to be severe due to back sprain, you need to take cold compress first to relieve the pain. The wrong choice will make the pain worse. Let’s talk about cold compresses first. Cold compresses make the affected part cool, causing its local vasoconstriction, resulting in poor blood circulation, so that the blood of muscle tissue is reduced. At this time, the cold compress is similar to the role of anesthesia and analgesic effect, and the heat between the muscle tissue to achieve the effect of inhibiting inflammation. Therefore, the occurrence of acute lumbar sprain and other initial severe pain, infection, inflammatory symptoms and muscle swelling after exercise, cold compress is the most effective way to deal with. So what kind of situation is suitable for taking hot compress? The effect of hot compress is the opposite of cold compress, it can make the blood vessels dilate, accelerate blood circulation, and then make the muscle tissue soften. Therefore, for muscle pain, has passed the acute stage of lumbago, lumbar strain, etc., hot compress is a very good treatment. However, it should be noted that when acute lumbar sprain pain is intense, inflammatory edema, hot compresses will further intensify the pain. The most appropriate time is 15 minutes Although the skin will change temperature in a short period of time with external factors, while the subfascial tissue will only cool down after a period of time. Therefore, cold compresses need to last for more than 15 minutes to get the best results. On the contrary, a cold compress for too long will in turn make the muscles stiff. Generally speaking, the cold compress time 10-20 minutes is most appropriate, so the cold compress should pay attention to the time must not be too long. And let the heat compress to achieve the best effect, the same need to last more than 15 minutes for the best.