Oh excellent advice, PJ! I use a heating pad and ice pack almost every day myself. Don't know why I didn't think of it!
If you have a microwave oven, it's easy schmeasy to put together a heat pack: Stuff a long tube sock with white rice, flax seeds, cracked wheat or fenugreek seeds, sew the end of the sock closed, and microwave until hot (mine takes a little less than 2 minutes for a thick sock). Stays hot for 15-20 minutes.
A friend made me a really nice flax seed hot pack a few years ago; she sewed chambers into a large pouch made of super soft fabric; it was sewn into a shape where it fits around my neck and covers my collar bone, shoulders, and down my back to about mid-shoulder blade. Super luxurious! If you've got some material on hand they don't seem too difficult to make.
Sort of looks like this:
...except mine is bigger and fluffier, and kind of quilted so the flax is evenly distributed. These are quite wonderful! But a tube sock works pretty well too....
