Using Viso Flushing to Relieve Knee Pain

Below is an excerpt from Charlie's Diary -The blog of Charles Stross that talks about a technique called vaso-flushing to relieve muscle pain. This method would work well to relieve pain in the knee and surrounding area as well.

Second, I'll tell you how to relieve muscle pain.

This technique is called vaso-flushing and I learned it from my wife, who makes her living doing sports massage. It works best on injuries that happened more than 48 hours earlier, and it's also good for chronic pain (including my own.)

It's simple: First, you apply ice to the painful area for three minutes. Then, you apply heat for one minute--this is best done by immersing in a hot tub or jacuzzi if you can swing that. After that minute of heat, you go back to three minutes of ice, then another minute of heat, then ice and heat again.

When the three rounds are done, you finish up with a minute or two of ice. That's it. I do this at my gym to take advantage of their giant ice machine and jacuzzi, but I've used an ice pack and electric blanket at home. It works surprisingly well.

Using and electric blanket is a great idea for the same reason that body part specific ice wraps are superior to a a general purpose ice pack, zip lock full of ice cubes or bag of frozen peas, it is able to contour to the body to ensure continuous, even contact over the entire area. A knee ice wrap is the ideal device to use if you are trying to relieve pain in the knee or surrounding muscles.


 You can find the complete post at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/02/lets-be-practical.html