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SnowPack Cold Therapy

About.com Rating five out of Five

By Wendy Bumgardner, About.com

Updated: November 2, 2006

About.com Health's Disease and Condition content is reviewed by our Medical Review Board

Snowpack Cold Therapy Wrap

Snowpack Cold Therapy Wrap

The Bottom Line

The best of the cold therapy packs I've tried. Perfect to take along in a cooler to ice sore muscles after a workout. Mimics both peas and crushed ice, with none of the mess, and stays cold for hours.
Pros
  • Flexible cold therapy pack
  • Stays cold for over 2 hours
  • Can refreeze and reuse for over 100 hours of use
Cons
  • None

Description

  • Flexible cold pack mimics a bag of crushed snow.
  • Freeze in a freezer, can be refrozen dozens of times.
  • Molds to any part of the body, Sports Cover can hold it in place.
  • Cools at a steady rate, stays cold for over 2 hours at room temperature.
  • Stays "frozen" for many hours in a cooler, so you can take it along for after a long workout.

Guide Review - SnowPack Cold Therapy

Rest, ice, compression, elevation. That's the RICE recipe for injuries. But the ice part can be messy or expensive. I've used the instant cold packs, I've used a baggie or neckerchief packed with crushed ice and melting all over me.

SnowPack is the best cold therapy gel pack I've seen. It looks and acts like crushed ice or peas. The gel is formed into microgel beads, and like ice it "melts" as it warms up. This reaction keeps it colder longer - 5 times as long as the common cold gel packs.

For me, this means I can ice my knee and then ice my hip with the same gel pack, then back to the knee again, and the pack is still colder than most of the gel packs I've used. It means that if I freeze it the night before, I can put it in a cooler and take it along with me when I go to a walk, and it will be plenty cold for me to use after I'm done.

The Sport Cover is available to use to hold the SnowPack in place over whatever body area needs icing. It also allows you to moderate the cold, with one side of the cover being thinner and the other heavier.

If you need regular cold therapy for a chronic problem, or if you just want to keep an ice pack handy in case of sprains or strains, SnowPack is a great solution.

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