If youâ??re looking for joint pain relief,
you should first determine the type of joint problem you have. If you have
received a sudden injury, then applications of cold are in order. For longer
term, more chronic conditions, cold should still be tried, but you can also try
heat if the cold is not effective.

In other words, the basic rule of thumb is that
new injuries should only have cold applied to them. The reason for this is that
the newly injured area initially gets â??floodedâ? by healing hormones and
chemicals brought to it by increased blood flow, which often causes swelling.
Here is an analogy: If a house on your street catches fire, the street will
become unusually crowded with fire trucks and other emergency vehicles to deal
with the situation.

If we stimulate the area around the injury with
heat or massage, it will bring in even more blood to the area and throw it
pathologically out of balance. Using our house-on-fire analogy, it would be
like having so many fire trucks and crews that they donâ??t have room to work
effectively.