My wife suffers from a chronic back problem she's had since she was a kid, every once in a while if she bends a certain way or moves too quick it hits her, and it usually takes a few weeks to recover, during that time she's using a heating pad or an ice gel pack for relief.
Well it happened again a couple of weeks ago, we keep a couple of ice packs in the freezer for just such an occasion, one of them finally let go, so it's off to the pharmacy to buy another one, our local pharmacy didn't have the one we needed in stock, but they could special order one, about a week and $40.00 would do it.
But, the Pharmacist had a suggestion, she quickly left me at the counter and ran down an aisle and returned with a bottle of rubbing alcohol and handed it to me, she instructed me to half fill a gallon sized zip lock freezer bag with tap water, then add i/2 the bottle of rubbing alcohol to the water, get most of the air out of the bag and zip it closed, next, place the bag inside a second freezer bag, get the air out and seal that one and lay it flat in the freezer for a day or two.
It took a couple of days for the water/alcohol mix to gel up, but by the second day I had a cheap ice gel pack that was colder than the others we've had, lasted longer, and re-froze just as quickly as the store bought ones.
I tend to forget something that my parents taught me a long time ago, that's if you have a minor medical problem, ask your local pharmacist before taking it to your doctor, the chances are they know the answer, and their advice will likely be better and cost you less than a doctors visit.
