Can Ice Therapy Machine Heal Shoulder Injury?
Cold therapy is a helpful remedy for treating orthopedic trauma such as shoulder injuries. However, it needs to be delivered in the right manner to be effective. An ice machine for shoulder is a device designed to deliver cold therapy to the shoulder joint. Yes, the traditional way is to simply make an ice pack at home and use it for cold therapy. However, using ice packs or frozen vegetable bags is simply not effective in delivering cold therapy for the speedy healing of orthopedic injuries. Ice therapy machine help administer cold therapy in the most optimal manner.
Cold Therapy for Shoulders
Recovery after shoulder injuries can take up a long time. Depending on the nature of the injury, the rehabilitation program can include cold therapy, exercises, medicine, and adequate rest. Even minor shoulder injuries can be painful and cause problems for life if not treated well.
Shoulder trauma can include surgeries (shoulder replacement, rotator cuff repair, etc.), fractures, tissue injuries, and pain. People in professions requiring extensive use of computers, tools, and heavy machinery often experience recurring pain in their shoulder joints. Athletes or anyone working out intensively on a regular basis can experience soreness in the shoulder muscles post their exercise sessions. Cold therapy can help heal all these types of trauma if administered properly.
Cold therapy works by temporarily reducing blood supply to the site of application. It occurs when the freezing temperature numbs the nerves and halts communication between them for the duration of the cold therapy application. When the blood supply to a particular muscle stops, the body begins to heal it through its natural mechanisms. The result is a reduction in swelling and pain in the tissues. The process helps speed up recovery after orthopedic surgeries, injuries, and muscle pain. Cold therapy can be extremely helpful in healing the shoulder joint when used as recommended by the doctor or as needed.
Cold therapy can provide relief from pain without the excessive need for medicines. Cold therapy can also speed up recovery; enabling patients to begin their physical rehabilitation program without any delays.
Using an Ice Machine for Shoulders
An ice machine for shoulders is designed to work effectively on the entire shoulder joint. The ice machine or the cold therapy unit for shoulders comes equipped with a healing pad that can cover the entire shoulder joint. Companies such as IsoComforter manufacture ice machines for shoulders with pads offering cold therapy from all sides instead of just on the top of the joint.
Ice machines have tanks that need to be filled with ice and water. As you plug in the machine, the pump begins to circulate the cold water from the tank to the healing pad. IsoComforter uses the patented Iso Tube technology in its ice machines. The use of this advanced technology ensures that the delivery of cold therapy is done in a safe and the most efficient manner. The IsoComforter healing pads consist of ridges that allow for optimal delivery of cold temperature without the risks of injuries from freezing temperatures. The self-priming pumps in IsoComforter machines make using the devices even easier. You don’t need to resort to any heavy mechanical work to use the machine.
The Effectiveness of Ice Machines for Healing Shoulder Injuries
So, what makes ice machines more effective in delivering cold therapy than the use of ice packs? The simple answer is the use of technology.
Use of ice machines is simply a better way to administer cold therapy. Ice packs can be inconvenient and messy. It is simply uncomfortable to hold an ice pack in place for 15-20 minutes several times a day for healing post-surgical trauma. Doing so even once a day for treating sore muscles can be quite uncomfortable.
Ice packs can melt and drip water on the surgical wounds; increasing your chances of contracting the post-operative infection. Their use can also cause quite a mess on the floor or the bedding. The unevenness of the ice packs is also not very helpful for delivering cold therapy to the shoulders or any other joint in the body.
A Guide to Understanding Your Eye Exam
Among the most common eye problems found in teenagers to adults and kids to elderly are nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism. Typically, followed by the visual acuity test, eye testing process and questioning session eye exam in Colorado Springs and eye doctor in Colorado Springs prescribe you with required eyeglass to help performing your activities normally with corrected eyesight. You take the prescription to an optician who prepares your glass according to the specs prescribed by the ophthalmologist or optometrist.
Even though the prescription with the details of specification appears to be incomprehensive to you, however, by decoding the symbols and abbreviated terms you can effectively understand what the prescription says about your eye health condition and its weaknesses. Whether you are shortsighted or farsighted vision issue and its acuity point. The guidelines below can help you interpret your eye test report successfully.
A Guide to Understanding Your Eye Exam
What ‘OD’ and ‘OS’ Mean
The foremost factor of your prescription to understand is the meaning of OD and OS. They are acronym forms while OD stands for ‘oculus dexter’ (directs Right eye), and OS stands for ‘oculus sinister’ or left eye. Doctors are also using another term OU, which means ‘oculus uterque’ i.e., ‘both eyes’. While these are the traditional coding systems, many doctors these days used to write RE (right eye as well as LE (left eye). In the prescription, OD comes before OS since doctors involved in eye exam in Colorado Springs and eye doctor in Colorado Springs see patient’s right eye on their left as they face them.
The other abbreviations
Sphere denoted by ‘SPH’
SPH specifies the extent of lens power needed for correction of nearsighted or farsighted people. If you see (-) minus sign, this means you are shortsighted, having problem to view things far. Conversely, if it’s (+) sign, it would mean you are farsighted. You have problem to read small words of books or newspaper. I.e. nearer things.
Cylinder denoted by ‘CYL’
It indicates the extent of lens power needed for astigmatism. If nothing is mentioned here, you should understand that your astigmatism is too negligible to correct with an eyeglass.
Axis
Axis denotes the lens meridian. Axis is defined by numbering it from 1 to 180. Here, number corresponding to 90 indicates vertical meridian while number corresponding to 180 indicates horizontal meridian.
Important: Meridians of one’s eye are found by assuming a protector scale on the eye’s frontal surface.
Add
This denotes additional magnifying power to be applied to the lower part of a multifocal lens for correction of farsightedness. The number appears with ‘+’. In general, it should be the range between +0.75 to +3.00 D for both the eyes. For rectification of shortsightedness, it should be the reverse.
Difference of Single and Multi-focal eyeglass
One’s single vision correction need indicates lens power for improvement of your farsighted problem or address nearsighted issue but not both. On the other hand multi-focus or bifocal are meant for those who need correction support for nearness, farness and intermediate range vision.
What are Visual Acuity, Eyesight, and Vision?
Whereas the largest part of people often make mistake while distinguishing Visual Acuity, Eyesight and Vision, here is the details
• Visual acuity refers to the sharpness of your visual power. This is tested with standard Snellen eye chart by eye doctors during eye exam in Colorado Springs and eye doctor in Colorado Springs. Visual acuity is measured keeping the chart static while you sit at a distance and read the alphabets on it enabling the doctor to offer you necessary correction glass.
• Eyesight typically means one’s ability to see things or ‘sense of seeing’.
• Vision can indicate either of visual acuity or of eyesight.
Factors to Consider While Looking for the Right Ophthalmologist
Eyes play an important role in everyday life and thus are an essential part of one’s life. When it comes to their health, there are two types of eye specialists are available; optometrists and ophthalmologists. Optometrists can prescribe medication to treat various conditions but do not perform surgery while ophthalmologists also perform surgery for the complex eye disease. The right ophthalmologist can not only help in treating various eye conditions but can also guide with general eye care practices that reduce the risk of eye damage or vision condition. It therefore becomes important to find the right ophthalmologist for the right treatment and care.
Discussed below are some of the factors that can be considered to find the right ophthalmologist;
The recommendation can always be helpful because these are the first-hand experience from the people around. The best people to ask for the recommendation are friends and family for they always share the honest experience without any biasing. References from the family physician or the pediatrician should also be considered. The Internet is also another useful and helpful resource in today’s world of technology. References also help in finding out the specialists in case one has a complex condition of glaucoma, retina, or cornea.
The medical practitioners are professionally qualified in the field of their expertise and are also certified by the concerned authorities. The medical qualification, training institute and the certification of various medical practitioners are available on government and concerned hospital’s websites. It is therefore advised to always consider these factors while looking for the right ophthalmologist. Though the medical qualification is important but in complex cases where surgery is required, the ophthalmologist with experience of previous surgeries and fellowship with other experienced seniors is an added advantage.
When one visits the ophthalmologist, communication skills of the ophthalmologists play an important role because there are many questions that one needs to answer so that ophthalmologist understands the problem and suggest the best treatment. The question-answer session yields best results when the ophthalmologist develops an easy rapport with the patient making them comfortable instead of anxious about their condition. Also, patients need to feel like another human to the ophthalmologist rather than another case study.
In the world of extended human interactions, one can also check for the reviews from fellow patients. These are available on various survey portals and at the hospitals. These reviews are about the overall experience of the patients with the ophthalmologist; the general atmosphere of the hospital, how easy or difficult is it to fix an appointment, how much time does the ophthalmologist spend with the patients, the waiting time, and other such things.
Once an ophthalmologist is found, it is advised to check with the insurance company if that hospital and ophthalmologists is covered under their scheme or not.