Any success with cooling neck wraps, vests etc.?
 

Has anyone tried those Polar Products (and others) to keep your body cool when it's blasting hot outside? I'm heading to New Orleans on vacation where I will be walking outside a lot (like in the French Quarter). The neck wraps and vests just look so bulky, and kind of dorky if you ask me! :D. But I'm willing to try them if they can help. I want to ensure I have the energy to enjoy the trip with my niece and nephew.

Other suggestions? Will drinking icy drinks help? I guess the only good thing is it's been 100+ degrees where I live now for days, and more to come, but New Orleans is in the low 90s so it might actually feel cool!

Any advice on keeping cool if you have to be outside would be great.

Can I also just complain about feeling trapped in my house in the summer? :( Days on end go by where I don't leave but I'm starting to go stir crazy! One day out in 100+ heat and I'm out of commission the next day, thoroughly drained.

I've tried a neck cooler that has gel inside and you place it in the fridge. I found it useful for only a short period of time - the 40 or so minutes it'd take me to get the kids from school, as my body heat soon warmed it up.

I hope you have a great holiday!

I have tried the vest, and many of the other things. the vest is too bulky and it doesnt really cool! it sez that it wicks the moisture off you, but that would only work if you were naked under it, no? I found it to add heat.

I love those bandanas that you can buy at Walmart that you soak in ice water and then wrap them around your pulse points. they help alot.

A fan with a mister or water spray helps alot as well.

Past that I would not waste my money or anyone else on those vests. They have a long way to go before they should call it a 'cool vest'

I use a vest. I wear it under one of my boyfriends cotton button down shirts, which is pretty baggy on me, so I don't think it is too noticeable. They do have some neck wraps that look like bandanas, but you gave to keep rinsing them out. You can get them at REI and running stores, probably most athletic stores carry them now.

I recently bought a vest on amazon that really works. It has velcro attached panels of plastic, sealed ice cubes. It is dorky and bulky :). I like Bets idea about wearing really loose top over it. Then I could wear it away from home without feeling awkward.

If we could come up with something feminine, fashionable and not bulky for cooling, we could make a fortune!

I've done the Walmart things that Dejibo referred to and they work for awhile, but if it is really humid they don't last long enough.

If I'm sitting at a sporting event, I will just use the blue ice packs and hold them on my neck and wrists as needed, but that isn't convenient for exploring New Orleans. I'm not sure if they make the neck wraps out of the freezable blue ice, or if they are only the water activated ones.

Seems to me like someone had found boob cooler inserts for in a bra sometime. I think that would be quite effective.

I got my cooling products quite a few years ago from the free program that MSAA has. I hope they still have it. I got the vest, a little flat thing that you is like the ones that you put in water to activate and it fits in the top of your hat. Never liked it. I also got the writst coolers. They are inserts that fit in what used to be popular with the runners. It looks like a sweat band for your wrist on one side but you put the freezer pac on the pulse point on the other side of your wrist. I liked the vest the most although I never could get used to using the cold pacs on my back, absolutely impossible to wear them when you are in a scooter, to uncomfortable.

I am not a vain person at all and if it takes me wearing a dorky looking vest to go outside and got o an amusement park I will do it. Since I couldn't wear the cold pacs on my back I put them in a cooler that I found that had cold pacs you could put in the top of the cooler that actually allowed me to keep my extra cold pacs for the vest with me in an amusement park and I would switch them out in the afternoon.

When I was a member at Curves I would wear my vest during the workout. For me it serves as double duty. As an RN, my passion was teaching so my vest let me teach little mini sessions on what MS was while I was doing a workout. It helped people see that their old preconceived notion of what MS was might not be so.

the neck thingies from walmart are very cooling but don't last all that long.
they're cheap too.

i just got a cooling vest from POLAR PRODUCTS. www.polarproducts.com

they're not cheap. i paid about $100. it's not gorgeous but i didn't care. i just can't function in the heat and i live in FL. i thought it would be heavy on but i was ok with it. it works for 3-4 hrs. the hotter it is the less time you get. i'd say closer to 3 hrs. but it does help quite a bit.

let us know how your trip goes.

Doydie, I got an email just a couple of days ago from MSAA about this program. Here is the link they gave to access info on the program.
support.msassociation.org/cooling

There is an application that has to be completed and it's found within the website. It sounds like a good program for those who can benefit from it.

I have used the water added cooling neck wrap-it has helped. I have had to add water (maybe even ice water) to it when necessary.

Have the BEST time :D
Linda

I don't know about cooling vests and stuff sine I'm a hermit in my A/C house now, but I just hope you can stay cool enough to enjoy New Orleans. Go from bar to bar..:D

Have a marvy time..:hug:

Thanks so much to everyone for the useful suggestions. My DH keeps trying to get me to buy some of these products as he sees me suffer and go stir crazy just being trapped in the house. It has been over 100 degrees here now for 2 weeks!! I'm excited to see New Orleans again as I lived there once. My mom has MS and is meeting me with my brother's kids. I guess she will be suffering too. It may just take a lot of pit stops at bars for icy hurricanes to make it around. :D

My experience with the vests and such is that they are great for sitting still in the heat for relatively short periods of time. The problem is that the more active you are, the more heat you generate and the less time the cooling effect lasts. With most of them, once the cooling effect is done, they start to insulate you and trap heat in. Once that happens, you will want to be able to take it off and not have to carry it around with you.

So if you have a car or hotel room nearby to stow it in after it gives up, you will be fine, but if you are going to be walking around in the heat, the last thing you will want is to be carrying or wearing a bulky vest that is no longer cooling you.

Thanks TX that explains it exactly! when I am sitting at a picnic or an air show with my vet on with its ice packs and so on, it works fine. I do stay cooler, but if you plan on walking the town, or running, or biking I find that the weight of the vest and the ice packs makes me heat up that much faster. Then the ice melts, and now I am wet, hot and miserable. it feels like I am wearing my bullet proof vest to ride my bike. If I were at the beach sitting on a blanket or reading a book in the park it would be different, but to be active I find that mine is more trouble than its worth. so...I do without. I just let the blindness take me.

Walked 3 miles today. 1.5 UPhill. and 1.5 downhill. really gave my legs a jello wobble workout. lol. I was shakey by the time I got home. The street got a new coat of gravel, so it was unsteady under my feet.

I survived it without the vest.

You have a great caring cheerleader husband, Dej. I've gotten fat and lazy since mine died..:(

@ sally :hug:

I have a friend with MS who loaned me her cooling neck wrap. I tried it at her pool when it was 102 out. It seemed to work! But again I was just sitting in the shade under an umbrella. She had a great set up--umbrellas over the pool for shade and over the table, a giant fan, and misting bottles to use. I definitely did not get the heat cog fog. I found the neck wrap only lasted for about 90 mins. though. Off to New Orleans tomorrow. It's 15 degrees cooler there than here which is crazy! Today was 106.

Have fun, Natalie..:D:hug:

Thought I would bump this up
 

Thought I would bump this up as it's summer and we are suffering. Good info on cooling products, even free ones. Yesterday was the first day over 100 here -- it's late coming this summer but time to prepare because it will be mostly 100+ from here on out! :)

How was that trip, Natalie? I realize it was years ago; this is an old thread.

I just requested free cooling supplies from the MSAA. The stuff I got many years ago from them aren't working so good anymore.

I tried the neck wraps and they didn't last long enough to really help me out. When its really hot out, I freeze plastic pop bottles full of water and pretty much carry them around with me (they are messy) but found them of great use when I would apply them to my neck or wrists or any pressure point. I wrap a large wash rag around them to absorb the water sweat and then I end up with a cool washcloth too.;)

Because the gel-filled neck wraps don't last long, as Karilann said, I generally use them to help me recover from getting overheated. Laying one over my head and gently pressing against my ears is Heaven!

If I was to need cooling away from home, I'd take two neck wraps in either a cooler or ziploc bag of water.

I also have found frozen bottles of water to be a great thing (plus I can have a cool drink as it melts). I have also been known to grab a total strangers slushie a time or two in the past when I got desperate at some festival :eek:

God bless my husband for quickly explaining and buying them new ones fast:D

Cheap but helps...
 

Bought a couple of the bags at a sports good store in camping section that are designed to put thing in water tight. I filled them with water & froze them. I refilled them with ice from dispensers after they thawed ( at this point they thaw much quicker) but ice is everywhere :). I like fashion scarves so I placed it on my neck and affixed it with the scarf. I look a little like a hunch back but not that bad. Definitely helps. If you are on a plane the attendant will refresh the ice in it for you...I travel a lot for work and don't have acces to keep putting cooling devices Ina freezer. Always be sipping on something cool..that helps me too. Good luck and have fun!