Intro­duc­tion:

There are many ques­tions won­der­ing on what and how herbal packs work.  Is it the heat or cool­ing effects on the appli­ca­tion caused the heal­ing or the actual nat­ural ingre­di­ents inside the pack are the sooth­ing ele­ments to the pains?

If the heat or cool­ing ele­ments are the essence, why do we have to pay such a price for the prod­ucts?  Are the scents really impor­tant dur­ing treatments?

What is Herbal Pack?

Herbal pack is a prod­uct which is filled with nat­ural herbs and pur­posely design to pro­vide pain relief and ele­vate dis­com­fort due to typ­i­cal mus­cle stiff­ness.  Depend­ing on the man­u­fac­tur­ers, the fill­ing ingre­di­ents and ratio com­po­si­tion of the herbs may vary from one to oth­ers.  There is no offi­cial guide­lines on this mat­ter and is not being reviewed by FDA or other inter­na­tional drug/ med­ical institutes.

There are hun­dreds or prob­a­bly thou­sands of dif­fer­ent designs, shape, and fill­ing ingre­di­ents of this prod­uct.  Cer­tain design may serve spe­cific loca­tion of your body, while the rec­tan­gu­lar pil­low shape are com­monly per­ceived as uni­ver­sal product.

How to choose the good one?

1. Con­sider the condition(s) that you wish to treat. Herbal packs come in a vari­ety of sizes and shapes includ­ing those designed for the face/eyes, shoul­ders and neck, and larger areas such as the back or stomach.
2. Learn the fill­ing prop­er­ties of dif­fer­ent herbs for max­i­mum ben­e­fit.  Do not just judge the prod­ucts  sim­ply by the fra­grances that you enjoy. A sam­ple of herbs designed to relax mus­cles or reduce inflam­ma­tion include chamomile, laven­der, pep­per­mint and cin­na­mon.  It is also essen­tial to know if there are heat­ing ele­ment on the blends, such as wheat & flax seeds.  Pep­per­mint & spearmint are another pop­u­lar choice that may be an addi­tional ben­e­fit to sinus conditions.
3. Look for 100 per­cent nat­ural ingre­di­ents in an aro­mather­apy herbal pack. Nat­ural ingre­di­ents should offer supe­rior aro­mather­apy ben­e­fits and often bet­ter heat retention.
4. Find an herbal pack that offers a remov­able cover. You may find the ben­e­fits of easy clean­ing upon usages or shar­ing the packs with oth­ers.  Also,natural packs are prone to inter­nal and exter­nal mold and mildew growth.  There­fore, you have to dili­gently store the packs in the  freezer inside the sealed plas­tic bag.
5. Iden­tify the prod­uct claim with regards to heat reten­tion, which should be at least 30 min­utes for best results. Opti­mally, look for herbal packs which con­tain flax seeds and wheat as the main filler. Flax seeds and wheat are reputed to have supe­rior heat reten­tion over rice/ corn and most other fillers. The excep­tion is facial packs, which require more com­fort and cool­ing therapy.
6. Look for designs for your spe­cific are of treat­ments.  They have to be com­fort­able, easy to use and covenience.

What are the uses of herbal pack?

It will gen­tly help in reliev­ing pain, stiff­ness, and ten­sion. If you have pain or dis­com­fort from stress or sinus prob­lems then you have to try one of these. The pur­pose of these herbal packs is to con­cen­trate the heal­ing effects by com­bin­ing heat­ing and/ or cool­ing effects on spe­cific parts of the body.

Can it really work?

Accord­ing to Vert Mooney, MD. Heat ther­apy appli­ca­tion can help pro­vide lower back pain relief through sev­eral mechanisms:

• Heat ther­apy dilates the blood ves­sels of the mus­cles sur­round­ing the lum­bar spine. This process increases the flow of oxy­gen and nutri­ents to the mus­cles, help­ing to heal the dam­aged tissue.
• Heat stim­u­lates the sen­sory recep­tors in the skin, which means that apply­ing heat to the lower back will decrease trans­mis­sions of pain sig­nals to the brain and par­tially relieve the discomfort.
• Heat appli­ca­tion facil­i­tates stretch­ing the soft tis­sues around the spine, includ­ing mus­cles, con­nec­tive tis­sue, and adhe­sions. Con­se­quently, with heat ther­apy, there will be a decrease in stiff­ness as well as injury, with an increase in flex­i­bil­ity and over­all feel­ing of com­fort. Flex­i­bil­ity is very impor­tant for a healthy back.

Ok, We know that heat ther­apy can relief pain, stiff­ness and pain. So what are the ben­e­fits using herbal pack then other method such as massage?

Just 2 rea­sons. One is easy to do. You can put the herbal pack while sleep­ing or while at work or in the car. And the other one is cheaper than tak­ing a pro­fes­sional massage.

Tips and Warn­ings when buy­ing Aro­mather­apy Herb Pack

• Look for an aro­mather­apy herbal pack that serves dou­ble duty as an ice pack if cold ther­apy is needed.
• Be cau­tious when tak­ing a heated aro­mather­apy herbal pack out of the microwave and avoid overheating.

How to use it to get the max­i­mum benefit?

You should check the tem­per­a­ture. It should be warm enough to relief your pain but don’t get your skin burn­ing! You can use enough insu­la­tion in between.

The longer the prod­ucts applied is the bet­ter. For a very minor treat­ment you can use for 15 to 20 min­utes. But for more intense injury you can use longer from 30 min­utes to 2 hours.

A spe­cific type of prod­ucts may feel bet­ter for one per­son than for another, It’s bet­ter for you to fig­ure it out your­self which one works best.

Avoid aro­mather­apy herb pack when you have fol­low­ing disease.

Please note that herbal pack should not be used in cer­tain cir­cum­stances. For exam­ple, if area is swollen or bruised, heat should not be used. Heat appli­ca­tion is also not suit­able in the fol­low­ing cases:

• Der­mati­tis
• Deep vein thrombosis
• Dia­betes
• Periph­eral vas­cu­lar disease
• Open wound
• Severe cog­ni­tive impairment

Patients should con­sult doc­tors if they have heart dis­ease or hypertension.