Our ancestors long ago through trial and error found that the cold (snow, ice)are of great help in the fight against many diseases.

In our time snow successfully treated joint and rheumatic pain.
Arthritis, is practically not amenable to drug treatment, easy to heal, which are applied to the joints mixture of snow and coarse salt (sometimes just 1-2 sessions!).
To do this, 2 cups of snow mixed with 1 Cup of coarse salt with a wooden stick. Put on the joint, a small flap natural tissue and it is the layer of snow on top of a piece of polyethylene. Keep 4-7 minutes, no more! Compress, remove, salt to shake and not to wash the overlapping region.
Attention! Use this cold compress is almost always causes severe pain (aching, twisting). This condition pain you need to endure, this is the reaction of nerve endings on strong cooling.
Keep in mind that the temperature of the snow after adding back the salt falls from zero degrees to-8-13оС and so you can sometimes get a little frostbite on the skin. Don't worry, it will disappear quickly, and it's a very small price to pay for complete freedom from pain, isnurance for months or even years.

Another recommendation for the treatment of arthritis also similar in principle to the previous one, using snow pack.
To make some rotational movements in the knee joints (rotate the knees in and counterclockwise for 5 minutes to reheat them. Fill plastic bags with snow (in this case, without the salt!), replace them with fabric ribbon to the knees and go with these snow compresses for 5 minutes on my knees across the room. Then the packages to remove, knee cover with warm scarves and just walk across the room another 10 minutes to give the joints a light load.
Exercises are performed every day until the disappearance of pain. For someone will be enough and 3 days, for some 3 weeks.

In the summer you can scrape the "snow coat" from the freezer, or use crushed ice.