I love ice -- crunching on snow cones, skating, slipping a cube down someone's shirt and placing a giant bag of cold cubes on my sore knee, my sore back, my sore anything. But icing is messy and not an exact science. The bag usually leaks and those insulated gel paks you stick in the freezer never stay cold long enough.

The best ice-for-injury method I ever experienced was this gargantuan, portable ice machine I utilized post-knee reconstruction. You'd fill the bin with a bag of ice, place a cuff around your injury and voila -- steady cold applied intermittently per the doc's instructions. Until the ice melted and I'd beg my boyfriend-at-the-time-now-husband to run out for another bag.

Whenever I tweak my problem areas -- lower back and right calf -- I wish for a magical ice machine that could deliver to just the right spots. Well if you've got the bucks, Game Ready offers a portable ice machine the size of a toaster, along with compression wraps to fit various areas of the body from shoulders to ankles. This little number delivers adjustable cold therapy with intermittent compression via form-fitting cold wraps. The machine costs $2,350 and the wraps vary in price from $255 - $650. Check out the FAQs, it includes a section on contraindications -- Compression Therapy and Cryotherapy should not be used in certain patients. As always, consult your doctor. You'll need a prescription anyway to purchase this puppy on your own.

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