Tag Archives: rice bags

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IceKap Review

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1/24/16 My friend Mindy said that this cool cap makes me look a Migraine Super Hero!  I kinda like that!  Not sure what my super power is…maybe living in a cave for days on end??

The sales ad for this migraine product kept popping up everywhere for this IceKap.  I read several reviews and thought that this might be something that might be great to add to my migraine toolbox.  And indeed it is most definitely awesome!  I used the IceKap both hot and cold.

Hot: In general I use heat in the form of heated rice bags.  So the first way I tried the Kap was hot.  But the way to heat the gel packs is by putting it in the microwave for 10 second spurts.  The first time I heated them it took 2 minutes at 10 second spurts…this was not fun at all with the amount of pain I was in.  Then my husband recommended the crockpot on warm since that is the way I heated my rice bags.  However this was not a good idea.  When I took the gel packs out in the morning one of them was about to explode and I could not even touch them.  In fact I couldn’t even touch them for several hours.  In other words I have not found a good way to use this Kap as heat, however the directions did suggest using hot water to heat them.  So at some point I will try it and let you all know.

Update: After sending an email to the company, here were the suggestions they gave me after reading my review 🙂  Great suggestions!  Great company!

Regarding the heating part. We say 10 second intervals as everyone’s microwave is different and we want to make sure nobody bursts them. Sounds like you could get away with doing 30 second intervals. Try 20 first. Also when using hot water the gel will expand if it’s left to continue heating or it will burst. Try pouring near booming water over them on a pot or even warming them on the stove in a pot of warm water.

Cold: After reading the information on the website and knowing so much about my migraines and what helps, I decided to try the Ice/Cold aspect of the cap.  In the past I have not been able to use ice because it caused vasoconstriction immediately and increased pain, mostly because it was cold in my hands and sent chills up to my head, which in turn caused the constriction of the blood vessels in my head and increasing the pain.  However, with these gel packs, you can put them in the refrigerator and make them cold instead of ice cold.  Using the cap in this manner, reduces the swelling and since the types of medications that work on my migraines are anti-inflammitory drugs, I thought I would give it a try.  And it provides a great amount of relief…enough so that I could fall asleep with the IceKap on.  When I woke I was able to put the 2nd set of gel packs into the Kap.  It was also a great cap to wear on the way to the emergency room today because I was able to pull the cap down over my eyes blocking out the light at the same time providing some relief.

Overall I highly recommend the IceKap for Migraine, Head or Sinus pain.

Here is the link to the website and an explanation about how the IceKap works.

IceKap.ca Website

product-profile (1)

Andrea Jones, ICEKAP founder

As a migraine sufferer, I was desperate to find a natural solution that would not only help relieve the pain but also allow me to keep up with my active lifestyle. I suffered from migraines and headaches for well over a decade. During this time I have been in and out of the hospital and had many serious and invasive tests done to determine what is causing my migraines. I had also become far too familiar with the steady flow of ineffective prescription drugs that impacted my ability to operate normally. I had become so desperate to find something natural and drug free to help me I started going to work in a tuque filled with ice. This is where it all began.

I developed this product for anybody who suffers from pain, sick days, lost wages, and the pure frustration of having a migraine or headache. When our whole ‘control center’ is in pain, how are we supposed to accomplish anything?  Never mind getting dressed in the morning. My work was suffering, my pocket book was suffering, I needed to find another way. Now there is – a soft, soothing and natural way to sooth you in your time of need and I’m so happy to finally be able to share it with you! I am not making any claims that Icekap is the miracle cure for migraine headaches but I can assure you it will soothe your symptoms, offer great relaxing relief and help you along the way to recovery in style!

How your Icekap works…

Icekap uses a combination of cryotherapy, aromatherapy and pressure therapy to treat symptoms. Cryotherapy is the general use of cold temperatures in medical therapy or the removal of heat from a body part. During a migraine the blood vessels in the head dilate causing pain. These vessels become swollen with blood and thus put pressure on the nerves surrounding the vessels. Both heat and cooling therapies use temperature manipulation to reduce migraine/ headache pain.

The use of cold therapy (Cryotherapy) is believed to cause the swollen blood vessels to constrict, thus reducing the pressure of the migraine/ headache pain. The use of heat therapy increases blood flow, increasing the amount of fresh blood, oxygen and nutrients to the head.

Icekap Essential Oil:

This combination offers an amazing soothing and cooling effect to the migraine sufferer. Cooling to the touch, it offers instant relief and a wonderful sense of well being. Lavender oil has calming properties that aid in relaxation and reduce anxiety while peppermint oil has cooling properties that create a cooling and soothing effect. Distilled essential oils have been employed as medicines since the eleventh century and are 100% natural.

Icekap Pressure System:

Some migraine/headache sufferers feel relief when pressure is applied to their head. To accommodate this, Icekap has an adjustable pressure band which allows the user to adjust the pressure of the cap to whatever tension they desire. The pressure system offers a comforting support to the key migraine areas – occipital, frontal, parietal and temporal regions. With this band the user can apply pressure to sooth the key areas of ‘pounding’ during a migraine.

Sincere thanks and joy to you for trying Icekap.
Andrea Jones, ICEKAP founder

 

 

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Getting ready to move in with my parents

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Starting to gather my things to make the trek to Midland to stay with my mom and Bob. I am in no shape to stay alone and Dan had to get back to work on Monday. So Gideon and I are heading to Midland. I have a feeling that the rehabilitation road will be a long one. I walked from one end of my house to the other (and we do not have a large house) and I was so fatigued that I slept for 3 hours. The Toradol injections and meds have helped keep the headache at a manageable level until today when it started to climb a bit but not horrible. Just needed to lay down in a dark quiet place with rice bags and a heating pad and all is well. So any of my Midland friends if you are out and about I should be there tomorrow some time.

March 19th

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Home again…making adjustments

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Slept all night in my own bed and it was wonderful…no beeping, no needle pokes in the middle of the night, no one waking me at 5:30 to take prilosec. But I did have a rough patch in the early morning.   Thankfully I was able to fall back asleep and slept until noon. Luckily Dan and I came up with a plan to dispense my medicines for morning last night so I just had to take them around the right time. It worked great. My head is still quite numb from the injections and the injection sites are starting to hurt a bit but overall I am doing ok!!

Has anyone ever had TMJ? I woke up yesterday in the hospital feeling like someone punched me in the jaw and I had a hard time opening my mouth. The nurse said it was probably TMJ due to the constant headache and I was probably clenching in my sleep. So now my rice bag has so many purposes. The newest being the injection sites and the jaw. At least I have a brief relief from the mind exploding headache.  I will take it.

tmj-diagram

I’m looking for a blood pressure cuff to borrow or know where we could rent one or buy one. After being awake for an hour and a half and just sitting in the chair I tried to get up and almost passed out so we were thinking we might want to start monitoring my blood pressure at home…with the advice of friends, Dan went to CVS and bought one.  Just took my blood pressure is 97/58. Going to monitor it and keep drinking fluids to get it back up above 100/60.

It just sucks that TMJ is one more thing that just started and causes additional pain. Plus the low blood pressure that is making it difficult to be up and around. Ugh. I’m not at the end of my rope but there isn’t much left.

And now the microwave died. Ugh! My main source of relief from pain is a heated rice bag. Going to try heating in the oven.  Update: Dan looked up on eHow how to reset the microwave and it worked. Phew. That was a close call!!  But the best FB response was from Emily:

Emily Feldpausch: Use the crock pot! (I continued to use the crock pot everywhere I went, including my bedroom, the hospital and at my moms.  Now I have a microwave in my bedroom, but the crock pot was genius!)

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Rebound Headache Continues

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When they first gave me a diagnosis of the Rebound headache, they told me it was extremely difficult to treat and that it was going to be an extremely difficult road. I was already in the middle of what I thought was the difficult road when I asked how long this would last. Their best guess was two weeks or so. I clung on to the former, the two weeks. In fact I almost counted down, as if at the 2 week mark I would magically be better. Unfortunately I fell into the “or so” category and the difficult road had not even really begun, well it had, but it was far from over and I believe it is still far from over.

The more I learn about the Rebound headache the more I am amazed about it. I am amazed that I fell victim to it…I was far from an abuser of medicine, I was simply taking medication according to doctors it’s just that I had seen so many doctors over the course of 2 weeks time that I was on so many different medications and had received so many through shots that when I decided on my own to stop them all cold turkey so that I could go to work with a clear head there were major consequences. And those consequences I am now dealing with every day.

I am on day 16 of this Rebound headache. I have never really known anything so persistent in all my life. It never leaves…it might lessen, but it has never gone away in those 16 days. And then come the times when it is so bad that I don’t know what I am going to do, how in the world I will ever be able to push through the pain. Night times seem to be the worst this week. And then came yesterday, the pain was this bad all day. Every time I tried to overcome it I would get so nauseous that I would have to take something or risk finding out what it might feel like to throw up with this headache. I chose Zofran!! After having experienced a full blown migraine that lasted 9 days and a spinal headache that resulted in a spinal blood patch, over the course of my Saga, the pain that I have experienced during this 16 and counting day Rebound headache can really only be compared to….I got nothing! Nothing to date in my life had really compared. Most likely due to the longevity but also the utter intensity of the pain at its worst.

So today I was exhausted from pushing or rather relaxing through the pain alI day yesterday. I have learned to accomplish this in a very dark room, laying flat in bed, with a heated rice bag over my eyes and head. On days like yesterday, when the bag starts to cool, I get it reheated (by Dan or Josiah) and start over and when that no longer gave relief, I finally took a shower and then finally sleep. The day after one of these days is spent mostly sleeping most likely from exhaustion (Later I would figure out that this is what a migraine hangover or postdrome is like after everyone). So today I have slept most of the day, but the headache has lessened enough to provide a real update.

So with all that said, this is not over and I am very much still in the middle of this awful Rebound Headache. No idea what tomorrow will bring, just the nature of this thing and we have no idea what the “or so” really means. So I continue to pray and I know many of you out there are praying for me and I thank you for that . Other than that, things are pretty quiet around the house and the boys are figuring out their routines without me or with me only to help here and there to minimally prod them along in the right direction.