Cold therapy is an age-old method for treating chronic pain and injuries. Cold therapy treats the affected area by slowing down the blood flow to that area, which in turn, helps to reduce inflammation, muscle spasms, and pain. If you have ever sprained an ankle or suffered a torn muscle, you know how much better a cold compress can make it feel.

Massage therapy, on the other hand, treats injury and helps to relax muscles by working on the tissue itself. Massage can help to relieve psychological stress, improve the mood, manage various levels of pain, relieve a migraine or sinus headache, and improve circulation.

When muscle strain is present, caused by a sports injury or some sort of accident, a combination of both cold therapy and massage can have a lot of benefits to minimizing pain and discomfort. This treatment, called ice massage, adds the benefit of compression to regular cold therapy. This allows the cold therapy to penetrate the muscle more deeply and effectively. Because of this, ice massage therapy sessions are normally only five to ten minutes, rather than the twenty minutes recommended for regular cold therapy.

Ice massage should be applied to the injured area (especially on ligament, tendon, and muscular injuries) with slow, circular strokes. The key is to start the ice massage as soon as possible after an injury. Do not leave the ice directly on the skin but keep it moving or wrap it in a wet towel. In order to avoid possible skin damage, stop icing once the skin is numb. There are many methods for creating the proper ice for ice therapy, but the easiest, most portable, and most effect method is using a portable ice massager such as the Ice-Up massager. While regular ice cubes can be used, larger pieces of ice are more effective at covering the injured area and truly penetrating the tissue. However, large-enough pieces of ice can be hard to get at home, and are not easy to take with you.

Ice-Up massage therapy products can be taken with you to sporting events to take care of injuries and pain on the spot. The Ice-Up portable carrying cooler keeps the massager frozen for up to ten hours-- so you will be as ready to treat injuries at the end of the game as you were at the beginning. Ice-Up can also be kept in the freezer at home to make deep ice massage available to you anytime. The ergonomic design is insulated, making it comfortable use without freezing your fingers and can stay frozen for up to ten hours.

A portable ice massager such as Ice-Up, is a real requirement to have on hand for anybody who takes part in a lot of sporting activities--it is by far one of the best ways to get pain relief right after an injury. At first, ice massage patients will complain of an uncomfortable chill, then a burning sensation, followed by an ache. In the end, they feel total numbness and easing of pain.