Warm Buddy Heat Packs - Heat Wraps and Warm up animals

Warm Buddy products

Warm Buddy heat packs and warm up animals are all approved medical devices for the relief of muscle pain stress and comfort.

Heat Packs and heat wraps

 Heat packs and heat wraps

Warm Buddy Company creates products that promote relaxation and provide natural relief from aches, pains and stress. We have been following this philosophy since 1995, while creating our world famous aromatherapy heat wraps, heat packs, eye pillows and the original warm up plush animals.

Warm Buddy rejuvenating heat therapy products have become recognized for their superior quality and long heat holding ability. Warm Buddy heat wraps and heat packs are safe, easy to use and highly effective. Simply heat in the microwave or cool in the freezer as desired.

All Warm Buddy heat therapy products are proudly made in Canada. 

Warm up animals

The Warm Buddy Company created the original warm-up plush stuffed animals. Each of our Warm Buddies comes with a removable inner pack that can be heated in the microwave or cooled in the freezer. These inner packs contain all natural ingredients and provide natural relief from aches, pains and stress.

Warm buddies help comfort children and adults to sleep at night. Our Warm Buddy family includes: Beary Bear, Wooly the Sheep, Puppies, Pandas, Penguins, Moosey and Froggie. The perfect gift for ages 3-100. Warm Buddy warm-up plush animals are proudly made in Canada with imported covers.

Large warm up puppy

Our warm-up plush animals have been awarded the prestigious PTPA (Parent Tested Parent Approved) Seal of Approval for excellence in parenting products. Warm Buddies won the award based on exceptional "value, functionality, quality and appeal of the product." To read more about the PTPA award visit our in the news section.

The Warm Buddy Company is proud to donate a portion of sales from our Bear Mitts, Small Beary, Large Beary and Pandas to allow Bears Matter (a non-profit organization) to help bears in need around the world. For more information or to get involved please visit bearsmatter.com

Benefits of Heat Therapy for Back Pain relief

The Benefits of Heat Therapy for Back Pain

The over­all qual­i­ties of warmth and heat have long been asso­ci­ated with com­fort and relax­ation,
Warm Buddy heat ther­apy goes a step fur­ther and can pro­vide both pain relief and heal­ing ben­e­fits for many types of back pain. In addi­tion, heat ther­apy for back pain is both inex­pen­sive and easy to do.

How heat ther­apy works

Many episodes of lower back pain result from strains and over-exertions, cre­at­ing ten­sion in the mus­cles and soft tis­sues around the lower spine. As a result, this restricts proper cir­cu­la­tion and sends pain sig­nals to the brain.
Mus­cle spasm in the lower back can cre­ate sen­sa­tions that may range from mild dis­com­fort to excru­ci­at­ing lower back pain. Heat ther­apy can help relieve pain from the mus­cle spasm and related tight­ness in the lower back.
Heat ther­apy appli­ca­tion can help pro­vide back pain relief through sev­eral mechanisms:

* Heat ther­apy dilates the blood ves­sels of the mus­cles sur­round­ing the lum­bar spine. This process increases the flow of oxy­gen and nutri­ents to the mus­cles, help­ing to heal the dam­aged tis­sue.
* Heat stim­u­lates the sen­sory recep­tors in the skin, which means that apply­ing heat to the lower back will decrease trans­mis­sions of pain sig­nals to the brain and par­tially relieve the dis­com­fort.
* Heat appli­ca­tion facil­i­tates stretch­ing the soft tis­sues around the spine, includ­ing mus­cles, con­nec­tive tis­sue, and adhe­sion. Con­se­quently, with heat ther­apy, there will be a decrease in stiff­ness as well as injury, with an increase in flex­i­bil­ity and over­all feel­ing of com­fort. Flex­i­bil­ity is very impor­tant for a healthy back.
There are sev­eral other sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits of heat ther­apy that make it so appeal­ing. Com­pared to most ther­a­pies, heat ther­apy is quite inex­pen­sive. Heat ther­apy is also easy to do — it can be done at home while relax­ing, and also make it an option while at work or in the car.
For many peo­ple, heat ther­apy works best when com­bined with other treat­ment modal­i­ties, such as phys­i­cal ther­apy and exer­cise. Rel­a­tive to most med­ical treat­ments avail­able, heat ther­apy is appeal­ing to many peo­ple because it is a non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical form of back pain relief

How to Apply Heat Therapy

The most effec­tive heat ther­apy prod­uct is one of our Warm Buddy heat packs or wraps . They can main­tain their heat at the proper tem­per­a­ture. “Warm” is the proper tem­per­a­ture. Patients should not have their heat source be hot to the point of burn­ing the skin. The desired effect is for the heat to pen­e­trate down into the mus­cles. Sim­ply increas­ing the tem­per­a­ture of the skin will do lit­tle to decrease discomfort.

In many instances, the longer the heat is applied, the bet­ter. The dura­tion that one needs to apply the heat, though, is based on the type of and/or mag­ni­tude of the injury. For very minor back ten­sion, short amounts of heat ther­apy may be suf­fi­cient (such as 15 to 20 min­utes). For more intense injuries, longer ses­sions of heat may be more ben­e­fi­cial (such as 30 min­utes to 2 hours, or more).
A foot note our heat packs can be used for hot or cold therapy depending on the injury

How to find a job that you like

How to find a job that you like (Love)

Over the years I have used a very simple formula to finding the job I would love to have, these principles have also been used by my daughter and many friends who have all found the job they love.

• Don’t look in the job vacancies.

         •Why, because everyone else is looking for that job

• Do some research on the perfect company YOU would like to work the rest of your working life with.

• Research this companies mission statement, take key words and phrases from this statement.

• Compose an introductory letter to the CEO or top person in the company, using the key words, or phrases from their mission statement, all the time making yourself irresistible to them, explaining why you would like to work for them and the skill sets that would make you an excellent fit.

             • Why the top person, everything flows down from the      top and if you are that irresistible this person is going to instruct their HR person to look at you. The HR is not going to say no to the boss.

• Again if you have made yourself that irresistible they are not going to let any of their competitors snap you up and they will search for a position for you.

• Your chances are that much greater  as there is NO competition as there was NO job offered on the market, you have created the need and the position.

This has worked for me throughout my working career and my daughter has found her lifetime career this way.

Good luck

How to keep cool this summer with a Warm Buddy

 Keeping cool this summer

Summer is nearly here and each year we look for ways to keep cool,without breaking the bank with expensive air conditioners.
Why not try a heat pack to keep cool...yes,a heat pack.
Warm Buddy have been making therapeutic heat packs and wraps since 1985 and one of their main features is that it can be used hot or cold.

Just pop it in the freezer for a couple of hours and it will keep you cool for an hour or so.
I always have 2 packs in the freezer so when one, warms up to room temperature I replace it in the freezer and take out the other one.
Always place the heat pack in a freezer bag to stop other smells from products in the freezer being transferred to the heat pack.
For kids and adults alike, use the heat pack insert in our warm up animals to keep cool, remove the heat pack, place it in a freezer bag and put it in the freezer for an hour or more , then replace the pack in the animal and this will help keep you cool.             
Plus you have a heat pack available to relieve any aches and pains.
Here's to a cool and pain free summer.

Back pain relief for the summer

Back pain relief Sports Therapy wrap

 

Back pain relief

Summer is here and so are the long days and yard work.
It is important to show your muscle the respect they deserve, they need to last a life time.
As athletes do, you should also do.
Athletes know how to treat their muscles they do warm ups and also pre warm ups as it is important to have your muscles warm and supple before any strenuous work or exercise.
Warm Buddy have been making heat packs and heat wraps since 1985.
They are all natural and are approved by Health Canada as a medical device to relieve aches pains and stress.
Our Sports Therapy wrap and Body wrap are 2 time tested heat wraps that use warm moist heat that will penetrate the muscle tissue and relive aches and pains and also warm muscles up prior to any hard work.

The benefits of using heat for pain relief

Using Heat for Pain Problems

When and how to apply heat for therapy … and when not to!

Published 2007, updated 2010
by Paul Ingraham, Vancouver, Canada
Not sure when to use ice or heat? Start with this super-short overview:
The Great Ice vs. Heat Confusion Debacle.
Please note that you should rarely (almost never) ice low back pain.
Therapeutic heating — “thermotherapy” for therapy geeks — is more useful than most people realize, because painful muscle problems are more common than most people realize. Pain caused by muscle spasm and muscular trigger points (muscle knots) is common and often severe, yet routinely mistaken for other kinds of problems. Consequently, one of the cheapest and best treatments — heat! — is routinely neglected.

Mustard plasters were widely used and probably brought about relaxation of muscle spasm through the heat generated by the plaster. Sometimes folk medicine is more sensible than ‘modern’ medicine. In any case, I suspect that the low-key, nonthreatening approach to back problems characterized by an earlier time helped to prevent the kind of long-term, disastrous courses that exist today.
John Sarno, Mind Over Back Pain: A radically new approach to the diagnosis and treatment of back pain

Everyone should understand heating the same way everyone knows how to put on a band aid. It is a cheap, drugless way of helping an amazing array of pain problems related to muscle dysfunction, especially neck and back pain. Heat will not single-handedly “cure” such problems, but it is directly therapeutic, as opposed to “just” relieving symptoms.

What heat is for

Heat is primarily for muscle pain, and for stress relief. Warm Buddy heat packs and heat wraps offer a warm moist penetrating heat, that penetrate the muscle tissue and relieve aches and pains fast  and without the need of any over the counter pain medication.
The trick is knowing what muscle pain is. Muscle causes much more pain than most people are aware of. Some kinds of muscle pain are obvious enough — like the pain you get after the first ski trip of the season, or charlie horses in the night — but these are relatively isolated and obvious examples. Also, heat isn’t especially useful for them. Charlie horses are pretty fast, and for most people a rare problem, thankfully. And that post-exercise muscle soreness is virtually immune to any kind of therapy.
But muscle knots …
When you say that you have “knots in your muscles,” you are actually talking about trigger points. A trigger point is a small patch of contracted, stagnant, swampy muscle tissue. Instead of the whole muscle being in spasm, just a little piece of it is in spasm.
If you’d like to detour and learn much more about trigger points, see
Trigger Points & Myofascial Pain Syndrome: A guide to the science of muscle pain, with reviews of every possible self-treatment and therapy option, even for the most difficult cases.
Trigger points are likely to be the most common cause of undiagnosed and unexplained aches and pains, especially stubborn or recurrent headaches, neck cricks and backaches. It is a much more common cause of pain than the more widely reported repetitive strain injuries (RSIs), nerve pain, or herniated disks. Trigger points also complicate essentially all other injuries: they usually appear in response to other kinds of pain and dysfunction, and then often begin to overshadow the original problem.
And heat is a good therapy for trigger points.

What heat is not for

Never apply heat to a fresh injury! Really. Just don’t do it! That’s what icing is for. Ice is for injuries.
And what’s a “fresh” injury? Any time tissue has been physically damaged, it will be inflamed for a few days, give or take, depending on the seriousness of the injury. If superficial tissue is sensitive to touch, if the skin is hot and red, if there is swelling, these are all signs that your injury is still fresh, and should not be heated.
Here’s an example of what can happen when you heat an inflamed injury: When I was still in school, and my father had not yet learned to call me before asking a doctor about his aches and pains, he went to a drop-in clinic following a traumatic knee injury. The physician on duty prescribed heat! This is shockingly wrong, but the results spoke loud and clear: his knee swelled dramatically, outrageously, causing severe pain and immobility.
Bear in mind that heating is for muscle knots or trigger points and muscle spasm, but not for physically injured muscle — muscle strains, pulled muscles, torn muscles. Damaged muscle is usually inflamed, not in spasm, and trigger points are a minor factor in the aftermath of the injury. It’s usually obvious that you’ve torn muscle because there is always a very clear, nasty “oh shit” moment of trauma, where you know — instantly — that something has gone quite wrong.
However, you may be understandably confused about the difference between spasms, knots, tears, etc., especially if you have back pain, where it can and does sometimes get all mixed together. People routinely believe that their backs and necks are injured when in fact they are just suffering from trigger points. I have other articles devoted to clearing up this confusion.
If you think you have a muscle strain, but you’re not sure, a great article for helping you sort it out is Save Yourself from Muscle Strain!
If back pain is your issue and your not sure what’s causing it, get thee to Save Yourself from Low Back Pain!
And the article (Almost) Never Use Ice on Low Back Pain! is specifically devoted to helping people understand why heating back pain is almost always better than icing it.

How heat works

It’s not scientifically clear exactly why heat is such a treat. However, a good guess is that there are several minor positive effects that add up to … therapy. Most of these effects are also beneficial in other ways. Not incredibly beneficial, and not even notably different from icing: for instance, a 2010 study showed quite clearly that both ice packs and hot packs were beneficial for neck and back pain, and about equally so.1 But a small therapeutic effect is still valuable even if it’s small, and there are probably situations where it works even better — after all, these were people with acute pain bad enough that they went to the hospital. They may have been a bit beyond the help of a hot pack!
Trigger points are known to be aggravated by stress (“fight or flight” hormones and neurology). As long as we aren’t overheated to begin with, being warm is a pleasant and comforting sensation. Our comfort zone is a warm place. Heat almost always relaxes you overall.
Overall relaxation usually reduces resting muscle tone. You can have “tight” muscles without actually being in spasm. There are many degrees of increasing muscle tone between relaxed and “spasm.” A true muscle spasm is very strong and painful, like a charlie horse. But many people live in a state of near spasm — their muscles always clenched and exhausted. This state is both uncomfortable in itself, causing the same kind of muscle discomfort that you have when you are exhausted from exercise … but without the endorphins. And of course it also aggravates trigger points. So any reduction in muscle tone is quite helpful. And the reduction in stress hormones makes it a more therapeutic (lasting) effect, as opposed to just momentary symptom relief.
Our comfort zone is a warm place. Heat almost always relaxes you overall.
Although scientists don’t really understand the physiology of why trigger points come and go, they have certainly identified why they hurt — the stagnant, swampy tissue fluids inside a trigger point are a disgusting bath for nerve endings. Heat facilitates circulation somewhat, helping to wash away metabolic waste products, and bring fresh oxygen and nutrients to the area. No one knows how strong this effect is.
As with everything about trigger points, there are many (many) variables, and consequently it is very hard to study, and everyone gets different results. But heat seems to have enough relevant benefits that many people get at least temporary, partial relief from trigger point pain by heating. And some people find it downright curative.
 

Cancer - skin stimulation:

Skin stimulation

In this series of techniques, pressure, warmth, or cold is used on the skin, while the feeling of pain is lessened or blocked. Massage, pressure, vibration, heat, cold, and menthol preparations can also be used to stimulate the skin. These techniques also change the flow of blood to the area that is stimulated. Sometimes skin stimulation will get rid of pain or lessen pain during the stimulation and for hours after it is finished.
Skin stimulation is done either on or near the area of pain. You can also use skin stimulation on the side of the body opposite the pain. For example, you might stimulate the left knee to decrease the pain in the right knee. Stimulating the skin in areas away from the pain can be used to increase relaxation and may relieve pain.

We have many customers who have gone through chemotherapy and have found our heat packs to be of great relief for their after pain, all our heat packs can be used hot or cold depending on the type of therapy required.

Warm Buddy make the best heat packs for relieving pain and stress

Warm Buddy Company creates products that promote relaxation and provide natural relief from aches, pains and stress. We have been following this philosophy since 1995, while creating our world famous aromatherapy heat wraps, heat packs, eye pillows and the original warm up plush animals.

Warm Buddy rejuvenating heat therapy products have become recognized for their superior quality and long heat holding ability. Warm Buddy heat wraps and heat packs are safe, easy to use and highly effective. Simply heat in the microwave or cool in the freezer as desired.

All Warm Buddy heat therapy products are Approved medical devices by Health Canada for the relief of aches pains and stress.

All Warm Buddy heat therapy products are proudly made in Canada.

Heat and Pain Relief

We instinctively know that heat is good for pain relief, but do we know why? 

Scientists have found a molecular basis for the long-standing theory that heat, such as that from a hot-water bottle applied to the skin, provides relief from internal pains, such as stomach aches, for up to an hour.

Dr Brian King, leader of the team that carried out the research at the UCL Department of Physiology, said: "The heat doesn't just provide comfort and have a placebo effect - it actually deactivates the pain at a molecular level in much the same way as pharmaceutical painkillers work. We have discovered how this molecular process works."

The team found that when heat is applied to the skin near to where internal pain is felt, it switches on heat receptors located at the site of injury. These heat receptors in turn block the effect of chemical messengers that cause pain to be detected by the body.   
How does heat help?

• By increasing tissue elasticity, heat reduces your resting muscle tension and helps to relax those nasty painful knots.
  

• Your pain is quickly eased via the sedation and soothing of any pain-irritated nerve endings.
  

• The deep heating effect increases your blood flow to the painful area, bringing more nutrients to the injured area while flushing out the injured debris. This helps to quicken your healing rate.
  

The deep heat also promotes a speedier healing rate by stimulating your natural metabolic rate. In other words, there is more energy available to fix the injury quicker.

The importance of keeping muscles warm

Importance of keeping muscles warm

Being the eternal optimist...good weather is always just around the corner and it is time to prepare our body for all the strains and stresses that will be put on it over the coming months.
In general with the changing seasons,different activities are performed,each placing a different strain on our muscles

Below is a list of suggestions to hopefully make the season a safe and productive one for you Heavy lifting, gardening, spring cleaning raising your arms over your head for long periods of time and playing sports such as tennis or baseball are some of the contributing factors to sore shoulder muscles. If left untreated, sore shoulder muscles may eventually cause a tear in your rotator cuff, shoulder bursitis or tendinitis.
Luckily, heat therapy has been used for many years to treat sore shoulder muscles by increasing blood flow, relaxing the area and decreasing pain.
Degree of difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

* Heat pad or wrap preferably our Warm Buddy wraps

1. Rest your shoulder muscles. It is extremely important to relieve any stress you have put on your shoulders. Sit upright in a chair with your arms on your lap. Try to sleep on your back rather than on your sides to give your shoulders a good night's rest.
2. Use an Ultra shoulder wrap or one of our Body wraps and Sports therapy wraps to wrap around the sore muscle. You could also immerse your entire body into a warm bath or hot tub.
3. Remove the heat therapy from your shoulders after 30 minutes or if you feel any discomfort. You circulation will have increased, bringing blood and oxygen to the sore muscles. You may want to stretch your shoulders slowly and gently immediately after you stop using heat therapy.
4. Use heat therapy on the sore shoulders or affected muscles at least 3 times a day.
5. Our Ultra shoulder wrap is specifically for your shoulder muscles. If you have frequent sore shoulders, heat pads and wraps may provide everyday benefits.
6. Use heat therapy before you exercise or perform any strenuous activity. Heat will increase your circulation, reducing stiffness. It will also relax your muscles, increasing their elasticity.
The same principles as above apply to any upper and lower back muscle aches and pains.

Before starting any exercise or strenuous activity you need to warm the body up thoroughly.

There are three reasons for this:
1. To reduce the chance of the injury
2. To increase blood flow to the working muscles and boost activity of neuromuscular pathways allowing them to be fully prepared for exercise.
3. To enable your joints to move more freely and prepare them for any stressful impacts. A good warm up can help limit any discomfort or anxiety associated with long exercise sessions. It also enables the energy system to be “revved up” and “activated” to keep up with the pace of energy requirements. This is where our heat wraps come in to play

Father's Day gifts 2014

June 15th 2014 is Father's Day
Why not give dad a gift that he can use year round to help with any aches and pains and stress.
Just think of life with a stress free dad

Stress relief for Dad.

For Dad we suggest our popular back pain and stress relief  Sports Therapy wraps,
sports enthusiasts or people looking for hot or cold heating pads use these
for back pain treatment therapy great for for Dad's back or neck aches: This is how they can get their natural,
local lower & upper back pain and stress relief with heat therapy.
This is an approved back pain management fitness medical device used
by many in Vancouver and around the world for back muscle pain and stress relief.
This is what makes this a perfect father's day gift

Father's day stress gift

Our Sports Therapy wrap is used by therapists for relief of back strain
and shoulder muscles pain,
when you need it most.Penetrating moist heat that gives sore muscles
& back pain relief - fast relief and naturally.

Recent studies have found that heat wrap therapy proved to be more effective
pain management for sudden back pain than oral pain medications such as
ibuprofen and acetaminophen.