Polar Products Active Ice Therapy System 2.0

UPDATE: 11/18/2015 I've had this going on 5+ years now and I wanted to give an update on this machine. It's still going and working just like it should. Super simple and still giving cold therapy to those who need it. While I have not had any new knee surgeries (yet) I have loaned this machine to 3 other people, one of those is on his 2nd knee surgery and has been using it go the last month. So this machine served me very well, and 3 others through 5 knee surgeries and rehab cycles and is still working like it should. Yeah that's a great deal. I can't give it any more stars but I would. It's earned them.So after 3 knee surgeries and a professional ice therapy machine (Gameready) rental at $250 for 2 weeks for a total of $1600 that my insurance company did not cover I was back to cold packs and ice in zip lock bags... To say the least I missed my ice therapy machine... So I did some research and decided to buy the Soft Ice Active Therapy System. Found it on Amazon for almost $30 less that buying from [...] (the actual makers of the system) and requested the expedited shipping. 5 days later (holiday weekend included).... The machine came... Now since I really couldn't find a description of how it is made, I'll let you in on the construction a bit.The system is made starting with a 9 quart cooler made by Coleman, your typical off the shelf lunch sized cooler. Inside the cooler there is an intake device that resembles a small pump with a hose the goes out the side of the cooler to a box housing the temperature setting (very basic flow adjuster, slows the flow to supply warmer water speeds it up to supply cooler water). The box also houses the plug for the power supply that resembles a laptop power supply and there is an on and off switch. Coming out of the box is the insulated tubing with an outgoing and return tube inside. The tube is permanently attached to the box and has about a 3 foot insulated tube with quick connect fittings on the end to attach the universal wrap that goes on the knee. The wrap is U shaped to fit nicely around the knee, ankle or shoulder and on one side has a plastic see though channel that water flows through and on the other side there is a fleece like covering to attach velcro elastic wraps to, one is included. The box on the side also has a return tube that runs in the side of the cooler from the box and dumps the return water back into the cooler near the top, above the water line.It's really a simple system that works very nicely to do a job a more expensive unit does. There are no fancy cycling features, or a back lit LCD screen to tell you how long you are running and the temperature you are at, it's all very basic and manual. FYI I priced a Gameready unit at $2500 and needed a letter from congress to buy one. This unit came delivered under $200 and does the exact same thing and is much quieter in my opinion. Missing is the very nice compression sleeve of the game ready that provided multiple compression settings and pumps air into the unit to proved a nice tight fit.. You don't really need it but it did feel a bit better with the compression.. However comparing renting a machine for $250 for 2 weeks verses buying a machine that I will be able to use in the future after exercising and other injuries, I believe you can't beat this deal.Options: There are some options and add ons you can get with this machine. A 30 minute timer, an auto emptying option, and auto accessory and battery feature for travel, different style of wrap for your back and such, and then the wraps. I would recommend getting the wrap for the knee (KAW Wrap) as it covers the plastic side of the wrap and fits around the knee quite nicely, keeps you protected from condensation and skin damage form the cold and has 3 velcro elastic points to help provide some compression during the treatment.Pros: Price, ease of use and simplicity. Effective treatment, and you get to keep it instead of renting it....Cons: Should come standard with the KAW wrap ($30 more). Would be nice to see a quick connect at the external box since carrying the cooler with the tube flopping around on crutches is pretty difficult. I mean how much more could it cost the company to add that on? A couple of bucks? You need to insulate the basic standard wrap with a towel against the skin (again would have been better to see the KAW wrap included)In this economy I love finding a deal, and this was a steal at this price. I also love the fact that it's a small company that manufactures it. [...] for more info about the company and other accessories for this product.I would recommend this product to anyone planning knee surgery, post surgery and those who typically use ice packs to ease their pain after a work out or injury. It's a great deal and you can't go wrong..Read the instructions and warnings about skin damage from cold therapy, see a Dr before use and do not call a lawyer if you leave it on too long and hurt yourself, that's your fault and your dumb for doing it. Pain is a great indicator that something isn't right. OK hope this helps, I'm off to bask in my cold therapy heaven.

Thankfully, after a fiasco with a previous order, and NOT Polar Products problem, this arrived the day of surgery. I think it is one of the best inventions ever. Simple to use, but cumbersome and challenging to reattach with only one arm after shoulder surgery, so I recommend you have assistance. I was able to get off pain medicine sooner with the consistent, steady cooling ice flow. It would be great if you could set the timer to start and stop every 30 minutes for a few hours so you could get some sleep. The first couple of nights I was to ice it 30 minutes on 30 minutes off - which meant someone had to turn it on every hour, from where we had to place the machine. I was able to work it after a few days of recovery. Our Physical therapist suggested freezing water bottles to replace part of the ice, which worked well. Would not have wanted to recover from shoulder surgery without this.

Two coolers failed - one within two weeks of being received and the second right out of the box.We've had the misfortune of having two of these units fail with the same problem. The first one purchased worked for two weeks then the pump started to make a loud noise, like it was seizing, and water circulation decreased. Customer service at that time (July 2010) was very responsive and sent a new one right away. My wife no longer needed it for her post-knee surgery recovery so we saved the new unit in its box, stored carefully. I had major back surgery last week and was confident in knowing that we had the cooler and I'd have effective post-surgical icing. To my dismay, when the brand new, never used unit was started with water and ice exactly as per directions, it immediately made the same horrible loud pump failing-type noise we had with the first unit after it was run 2 weeks. Now I'm stuck - pain from major back surgery and the choice between using standard ice packs or the Polar unit which is much more effective at cooling but stresses me with an earsplitting noise.Since Polar Products' customer service had been good last year, I contacted them in the hope that they would once again stand beyond their product even though the 6 mo warranty period had expired on the brand new, never used uint. I was wrong - something changed at Polar Products and Customer Service was not helpful and in fact essentially accused me of not being truthful with them and suggested that I had in fact used or abused their product and that's why it failed. They did offer a repair for $75 plus shipping if I would send it to them and cover shipping or they would sell me a new unit at the full Amazon price. I was really surprised and disappointed that Polar would not stand behind their product and help me out, especially since I was in a bind because of an apparently recurrent defect in their product, that they had not identified. Frustrated, in pain and tired of trying to cancel out the cooler's noise with headphones, I've purchased the pump from a supplier (through Amazon) and had it overnighted so that I could make the repair without having to wait a week or more plus the added cost for shipping and repair by Polar Products.So , if you don't care about reliability or customer service, this is certainly an effective, reasonably priced unit. BUT, if you don't like really loud constant droning/wining noise or don't want to be stranded without a functiong cooler, then think twice and explore other options. I've heard good things from a friend about a round thermos style cooler (don't know what brand).