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