Got an owie?

June 22, 2012–When my kids were little, I kept a “Boo Boo Bunny” in the freezer. This bit of genius came in the form of a little frozen plastic ice cube, wrapped in a soft outer cover that looked like a bunny, and it was always my first go-to first aid tool. ?Whether it was a conk on the noggin, ?a bendy-wendy ankle, or a swollen cut or scrape, Boo Boo Bunny was there to make it better with icy relief. And yes, when no one was looking, I sometimes called on Boo Boo Bunny myself to ice my grownup owie of one kind or another. And now, it appears, there’s something even better. It’s not a bunny (it actually looks more like a snake, all coiled up in its container . . . but somehow I don’t think “Boo Boo Snake” would have caught on . . .call it a marketing hunch), but the reusable healing cold of the Kold-Rite compression wrap is just the thing for any sort of swelling or soft tissue injury that besets my horse. (Or me, for that matter. It is OK’d for use on humans as well as their horses!) And, even though it won’t last forever like the Boo Boo Bunny, it will regenerate for numerous (probably around 15) uses. This cold wrap that will now forever live in my refrigerator right next to the lettuce (but it doesn’t have to be refrigerated, the literature says ? it just enhances cooling) is always ready to conform to whatever body part is injured, and offers a cooling effect, along with a little compression, that lasts for hours without the the tissue damage that could happen with that same length of exposure to ice. I got my Kold-Rite wrap at the recent AmerEquine Festival of the Horse in Fort Worth, and as rep Rodney Anderson explained, this cool (literally) product, made of stretchable polyurethane foam saturated in a 96% water-based gel that cools at room temperature works because it evaporates water to provide moist cooling action simultaneously with compression to knock off two points of the standard and infamous R-I-C-E (Rest-Ice-Compression-Elevation) prescription you’ll hear from athletic trainers of both people and horses. Kold-Rite, Rodney said, calls on the evaporation to pull ?heat from the muscle tissue as it compresses to reduce and prevent swelling. He also said that Kold-Rite is highly effective at body cooling and rejuvenation ? reducing the overall body temperature by cooling the blood that runs through the surface vessels when used for 20-30 minutes following strenuous exercise. (I’m wondering if the kind folks at Kold-Rite would make me a jumpsuit out of this stuff). But for equine athletes that need to have their legs iced after strenuous work, I imagine Kold-Rite would be a handy thing indeed! So if you or your horse has an owie ? including sprains, strains, tendon, joint, hematoma, arthritis, muscle, or other soft tissue injury ? keeping a Kold-Rite wrap at the ready can make these kinds of owies better by decreasing blood flow to damaged areas and slowing the metabolism in surrounding tissue to minimize pain and damage. The 3″x 72″ Kold-Rite Compression wrap sells online for $17.99. For more general information about this product, check out their website at www.koldrite.com, call them (they’re very friendly!) at 936-231-1308, or email questions to info@koldrite.com. And as always, the products I tell you about here are in no way endorsed by, affiliated with or connected to me, DiscoverHorses.com, the Equine Network or AIM. Happy (Owie-less) Trails!

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