Creating Homemade Heating Pads

Homemade Heating Pad: The Towel Compress*

• 2 hand towels

• Ziploc bag

• Microwave

Wet both towels. Squeeze out excess water until the cloth is just damp.

Every chronic pain patient has the grip strength to wrestle fluid out of fabric. Especially when you’re experiencing enough agony to warrant a heating pad. You can knot your fingers around the twisted, rolled contours of a hand towel (TWICE!) that resembles the state of your nerves and muscles and knead those stubborn water droplets free. That’s entirely reasonable to expect from a hurting individual.

Maybe prepare two towels ahead of time and set them aside the way they do on craft shows. “Here’s a homemade heating pad I made three weeks ago when my body was speaking to me.” (It’s not like water evaporates)

Place one towel in the Ziploc. Leave the bag open and place it in the microwave.

You’ve already demonstrated your manual dexterity. Did you expect the ability to line up the precise teeth of a Ziploc? (You know it’s coming, though, don’t you?)

Put it on “High” for 2 minutes.

Two minutes - a watched pot. Imagine how much time homemade projects require. (It’s okay - it’s not like your pain has plans to go anywhere)

Remove the Ziploc from the microwave. Careful - it’s hot!

Wouldn’t it be hysterical to find you created a twisted version of an ice pack?

Seal the bag and wrap the other damp towel around it. You can now apply your homemade heating pad to the sore area. It should last about 20 minutes.

Twenty minutes is - and isn’t - plenty of time.

Long enough to contemplate the 20 minutes you spent attempting to wring water out of two hand towels. Too much time to sit and reflect on everything you can’t do as you cover your body in Ziploc bags, damp patches seeping into your clothing from the excess water your diminished strength failed to remove. Double the time usually required for a person to remember everything they canceled so they could make a homemade heating pad. Twenty times as long as you need to regret the loss of your body before pain dictated how you would spend an afternoon migrating between the sink and the microwave.

Two minutes in a microwave reheats leftovers. It’s not enough to generate the heat your tissues crave when they scream for relief. You can remove the soggy outer towel and press a hand on the lukewarm plastic without worrying about burns. Your skin barely flushes pink, much less red. Before the promised 20 minutes end, you’re looking at the walk across the kitchen.

Another 20 minutes of squeezing water.

You’ve created a new exercise routine, at least.

Homemade Heating Pad: Sock Compress*

• cotton tube sock

• rice

• rubber band (or string)

• sewing needle and thread (sewing machine if you’re ambitious)

Fill the sock with rice. Leave enough room at the top to close the opening.

Reflect on the many social media posts and friendly observations from strangers counseling against the ingestion of carbohydrates/grains/plant material as you struggle to maneuver a measuring cup into the neck of the tube sock. (You probably needed to make a special trip to purchase the offending grain)

With any luck, you won’t drop rice on the floor, requiring the additional movement of sweeping and chasing down a single grain with the dustpan.

Get lost in the scooping process and realize you’ve filled the sock to the brim. Dump the excess, spilling grains all over the floor. Resign yourself to getting out the broom.

Secure the sock opening with a rubber band or string to hold the rice. Or sew it shut.

Look at your smiley-faced note to yourself suggesting you pre-make a homemade heating pad. During a good day - when you have the spoons to spare on hunching over an orphaned tube sock stuffed with rice. When your fingers aren’t clenched so tight, they’ve forgotten the delicate operation of a rubber band as anything more than a projectile. (Add rubber bands to your grocery list)

Curse yourself for not waiting to sweep the floor until after securing the sock closed.

Microwave the sock on “High” for no more than 3 minutes.

Add up the time you’ve spent creating the world’s ugliest stuffed toy as you watch your sock spin in the microwave. Find your brain wandering to inconsequential thoughts.

Such as whether fabric is okay to microwave. (Who wrote these instructions, anyway?) You always microwaved rice cups until the world scolded you and told you grains were irritating to the stomach. Peeled the lid back, shoved it in, and walked away. You couldn’t bother with the extra time it took to boil water and stir grains around properly - not when there were better things to do. When the world still belonged to you.

Forget the sock. Three minutes is an interminable amount of time to wait.

Jump and scream when the microwave goes off, tweaking every protesting muscle in your body.

Remove sock from the microwave. Careful - it’s hot!

Stare at the misshapen lump of cotton-encased rice. You expect a grand transformation for your homemade heating pad. You expect miracles from pain relief.

Shake sock to disperse the heated rice and apply to sore area. If you need more time when it goes cold, microwave again for 1 minute and reapply.

Socks go missing in every load of laundry. Dozens of potential heating pads. Enough to cover your entire body. A heavy cotton boa of regrets weighing around your neck, bending your back.

Staring at a pile of squishy tube socks spinning in the microwave (the irony of trading one appliance for another), you envision stuffing them inside slippers, sliding them into pockets. A soft and yielding touch your body tolerates.

You’ve replaced human companionship with the most mismatched stuffed snakes ever crafted.

Are you erasing pain, or are you filling the void of not being able to tolerate a hand against yours, a hug across your shoulders, fingers curled in your hair? One heat in place of another.

Everything goes cold eventually.

And you still have to sweep the damn rice off the floor.

*Based on Healthline’s Homemade Heating Pad Suggestions