I slipped and hurt my knee recently, it was a minor injury but painful for a few days and not helped by the fact that I needed to walk around as much as ever while it was still hurting. After a heat pack didn't help I decided to try a cooling product after spotting a tub of Biofreeze gel in the medicine cabinet.

It's available in a variety of formats, I'm only using the tub simply because this is what Mark bought and left in the cabinet but if I was using the gel in the long term I'd probably prefer the tube or pump action bottle for hygiene reasons. The plastic tub has a screw lid and wide top so you can reach in and grab a good handful of the gel, you don't need a huge amount and it's easy to pick too much up so remember less is more when you reach into the tub.

On an aesthetic level the gel looks gorgeous; it's a deep aqua colour and when not used for a while the top gets a white crackled look, like ice patterns. The gel feels very wet upon application, and this is partly why I recommend using as little as possible because it seems to take forever to dry even if you only use a relatively tiny amount. It feels cool from the instant I apply it, I found it worked most effectively if I spent a few minutes massaging my knee while rubbing the Biofreeze in - if time was against me and I had to 'slap it on and run (hobble)' it would still get cold enough to help with the pain, it'd just take a bit longer.

The relief provided by Biofreeze gel is fairly instant, the gel is cool as soon as you apply it and gradually gets colder over the next few minutes. Once it reaches optimum coldness the gel doesn't stop working there as by this point the chill will have seeped into my skin and muscle, it's not as pleasant feeling as when you use Deep Heat (or other heat products) but worked a treat on the type of pain I was experiencing in my knee. The cold numbs the pain and allows me to get on with my daily life, obviously a more severe knee injury would require more rest but for me the Biofreeze and painkillers was all I needed.

I found I'd be applying the gel every two hours or so, sometimes more often when I felt the pain starting to encroach. The instant(ish) effects made my life easier for those few days and I'd definitely recommend it if you have a similar pully/twisty injury that is helped by cold rather than heat.

A 118ml tube of Biofreeze costs £9.99 in Boots which is slightly on the expensive side but sometimes cost isn't an issue when you're in pain. My partner tells me he's certain his decent sized tub of Biofreeze wasn't as expensive as that, so it's maybe worth shopping around if you're in the market for some chilly pain relief.