Polar Active Ice 3.0 | 9 QT Cold Therapy Ice Machine | Programmable Timer | Full Circumference Knee Pad | Cryotherapy Pain Relief System | Ace Bandage Style Compression

This product is fantastic. I am recovering from a tibial ORIF surgery and purchased this machine maybe a week after my operation. The difference between this and the four ice packs I’d been using at a time was night and day. The wrap fully wraps around my knee and provides continuous ice therapy and pain relief. The timer feature is very helpful. It’s flexible enough that I can move my knee a bit, but it still acts like a firm compress when the wrap is fully filled with water. It’s easy to refill, too - I’ve been using the same 12 frozen water bottles in rotation for the last 2 months, and in that time the machine has probably saved me $150 in bagged ice purchases from the continuous refills that traditional ice packs require. The machine keeps the frozen water bottles cold for ~8-10 hours, in my experience. I love this thing. If you are recovering from a knee injury or surgery, I cannot more highly recommend it.

Buckle up! There's a lot to say. I'm comparing the Polar Care Active Ice machine to four other units I've used. I've had knee problems for over 20 years. My first knee surgery was in 2003 and they provided me with my first cryo cuff machine. Back at that time it was not electric, it was gravity driven, so it had to be elevated much higher than your knee. It provided ice cold water, And I thought the machin was a fantastic bonus! Fast forward to about 2012. I purchased a Breg Kodiak polar Care unit. I was confident that they're really good units and so I put it aside until I needed it. When I needed it, it worked ONE time, and then the pump died. It was terribly disappointing. I spent all that money, was out of the return window, and had a dead unit I couldn't use. Fast forward again to almost 4 months ago, when I had another knee surgery. My insurance would pay for a cryo machine, so I was psyched. The equipment company my doctor's office uses provided me with some crappy noisy unit that provided cool water, but not cold enough water. The indicator light on that machine died after the first week. I requested another machine and they brought me an Ossur Unit this time. The Ossur does the job, But again, the water isn't very cold. The other issue I have with the Ossur unit, is that the knee pad was too small. It basically laid on top of my knee and went down the sides a little bit. Ossur does not have a wraparound or a larger version of the knee pad than what I had. And NOW, to the pièce de résistance: The Polar Care Active Ice! Y'ALL! This machine makes me want to do a happy dance! Here's my take--in no particular order. 1) The 9 qt unit looks like a small cooler you'd take on an outing. It's larger than a personal cooler, to be sure. But it's def not a monster! 2) It's only about 5.5 lbs when it's empty. The tubing is actually fairly weighty, as is the wrap I purchased. And the tubing is fairly long, which is a welcome convenience. 3) Upon purchasing this Polar Care Unit, you can choose from a bunch of different wraps. I chose the large rectangular wraparound for my knee, so that I could get 360° coverage. I HIGHLY recommend doing that. I mean, WTH is the point of a pad that you just put on the front of your knee? The wraparound was the way to go for me! 4) Not only can you use frozen water bottles inside the unit, but the Polar Care folks even have a video showing you how to do it. It is SUPER convenient to be able to reuse the water bottles and not have to worry about ice cubes!! NOW, to the REALLY great stuff! 5) There is a wired remote control! This little gem is of huge significance to me. The remote gives you the ability to set the timer in 10 minute increments up to 990 minutes. The timer cycles the unit both on AND off. The most recent studies show that cryotherapy is most beneficial at increments of 20 minutes on and 20 minutes off. So that's how I set my machine. That means I could go to sleep and it just keeps cycling, I don't have to do anything. I don't even have to think about it! You can imagine what a tremendous bonus that is for post-op pain when you're in a drug induced stupor! Additionally, You can adjust the coldness of the water from numbers 1 to 4. I have no idea what the temperatures are, but 4 is the coldest. Just be sure NOT to place the wrap directly on your skin. You need a barrier to protect your skin. I use it with pajama pants or lounge pants. I feel like my jeans are too thick. 6) And speaking of water temps, this machine gets COLD, and I mean COLD!!! FINALLY! A cryo machine that actually provides really cold water. As mentioned, the water temp is adjustable. So YOU don't have to have the freezing cold water, and that's another HUGE bonus! 7) This unit is fairly quiet. The little humming that it does is not annoying to me at all, whereas the others grated my nerves. But I suppose that's different for everybody. Some reviewers have mentioned hearing the water trickle inside the unit. I hear that occasionally but it's really a non-issue for me. This Polar Care Active Ice Machine is, hands down, the all around BEST of the 5 cryo units I've used. If you haven't guessed by now, I HIGHLY recommend it.

This was purchased for my sister-in-law for a total knee replacement post surgery. It has been awesome. We froze 12 12oz bottles of water before hand to be ready when she came home. We put a larger hand towel around her leg then the therapy pad and Velcro it in place. The hose couplings come undone very easy for getting up for quick trips to the bathroom and snap back in place when back to bed or sofa wherever she is resting with foot elevated. I was a bit concerned at first that the ice didn’t stay frozen as long as the ice therapy machine (it is a different brand) did for my sister who also had the same surgery 2 months ago. However I was reminded this pad is bigger so it’s circulating more area and coming back a little warmer. Also I’m not sure the cooler it’s in was of a more thermal design like a Yeti, we put a very thick blanket over the top of the cooler and I feel the ice is lasting longer along with the therapy machine is running 20 minutes on and 40 minutes off. We can get the ice to last almost 6 hours. If you are having and kind of joint replacement I highly recommend this product. It has been very worth the money!

Bought this to use after my TKR surgery. I am so glad that I did. It helped so much and worked perfect! My husband would fill it up with ice water bottles in the morning and it would last all day. Much more convenient than dealing with ice packs. Loved that I could set the timer for 20 mins on and 20 mins off. I was able to even sleep with it on. Super quiet and kept my knee iced all the way around.

I purchased this after being sent home from the hospital after knee surgery. I was in agony and my entire leg from the knee to the toes became horridly edematous. Looking for more constant pain relief than what pills were providing, I searched for an ice water circulating machine. I was pleasantly surprised that the cost was reasonable and ordered this after comparing various ones. I especially appreciate being able to adjust the level of coldness with a remote as well as the remote giving me control over how long the ice water circulates as well as the length of pauses between active circulation. Immobility makes the remote priceless. The pain relief I got was instantaneous AND complete! It gave me the break from constant excruciating pain immediately. The swelling in my leg also began to slowly subside. I used it lying down with my leg elevated on a foam wedge. I also used it sitting in my recliner. At our age of 69 years, we found it super easy to set up and get running. I used it for several weeks and and very happy that I bought this. This is a relatively small size and doesn't weight a lot empty - weighs a bit with ice and water but that can be added once it is in the place you are going to be using it. It is easily portable - just needs an electrical outlet within about 5 feet. I highly recommend purchasing this if you are planning to have any type of orthopedic surgery (although I suspect it would be useful for other types of surgery also.) I also recommend this for chronic pain or injuries. My only suggestion is that if you are the least bit a "larger" person (I weigh 200 lbs. at 5'3") that you get the large "blanket" rather than the knee wrap as with the swelling after surgery I could barely get the edges of the knee wrap to meet to velcro. I certainly wish I had gotten the larger "blanket", but made do until the swelling receded quite a bit and the wrap fit my leg better. Even so, it was an incredible relief. One of the best purchases ever. After reading several questions and reviews I have to add the following: The remote has been improved - you can control the temperature with the new improved programable timer and temperature control remote. You have 4 choices of temperature control. Works fantastic! Direct from their website: "The combination programmable timer & temperature flow control (#DFT) is a direct replacement for the programmable timer (#DTP), which has been discontinued. In addition to custom cold therapy "on" and "off" cycles, this combination remote allows you to adjust the flow of the water through the system, which will in-turn make the water temperature less cold."

Extremely soothing. Both knees were replaced within a three month period and in my opinion this aided recovery time.

This ice machine is heaven sent. Post op must have! I had a partial knee replacement, but any kind of knee surgery is painful. Features I love: 1. There are 4 different coldness levels you can choose from which works great for when you have varying levels of material (just a compression stocking = level 1; ace bandage = level 4; compression stocking + sweatpants = level 3) or for varying levels of pain. 2. The timer works great. Increments of 10 minutes for on/off 3. Holds about 4 full sized frozen water bottles which keeps the water nice and freezing. 4. No leaks! I mean, if the tubes get disconnected or the cooler part tips over, it’ll leak but the cooler part (like a little igloo cooler) is pretty stable and the tubes only accidentally disconnect when I threw it off the bed instead of guiding it, so really my fault. 5. It’s pretty quiet. The only real noise is the tinkling of water back into the cooler from tubes. Features I don’t like or wish it had: 1. I wish the timer could do 5 minute increments, but I mean it’s obviously not a deal breaker. This ice machine is great. No notes really. Torture box approved even.

I very nearly rented a very, very pricey ice circulation device from a company before I found this, which was less than it would cost me to rent the other product for two weeks to give pain relief after my daughter’s knee surgery. This product is excellent because it doesn’t leak, stays cold longer than regular ice packs, can be set on a timer to circulate throughout the night so there is less getting up to change ice packs, and because it wraps around the entire knee, you don’t have a heavy ice pack sitting with all of its weight on top of painful incisions pressing down. We lent this to a friend recently for their post-surgery care and the feedback from them was, “Ah, instant relief!” One tip not to miss however, when you are done using this, don’t forget to follow the cleaning/sanitizing directions and run bleach water through it. We failed to do this and I kept smelling a very unfresh scent in my daughter’s room that I couldn’t figure out. It turned out to be the old water remnants in this pad. I flushed it with warm bleach water for half an hour, then hung the pad from the curtain rod to use gravity and promote better draining and that worked, but I wish we neglected to sanitize it earlier. If you are having a knee surgery (or I suppose any kind of surgery where you’ll need constant icing), THIS is a great product!