Icy Hot Heat Therapy Patches: "Are They a Flawed Product?"

Bolingbrook, ILSarah says she was burned by Icy Hot Heat Therapy Patches. Although her injuries were not as severe as some people experienced, they still caused pain and required medical attention. Now, like many other people, Sarah is left wondering if the Icy Hot Patches are a defective product.

One evening in February, Sarah (not her real name) walked on her treadmill for 45 minutes. Her hip felt sore afterwards, so she put on two Icy Hot Patches. She says that the patches were side by side because the pain in her hip covered a large area. Sarah says she had used the patches before and had not suffered from any burns.

Approximately six hours after putting the patches on she woke up because her hip felt itchy. She scratched her hip, but felt pain in that area so she took the patches off. "There were red burn marks where the patches had been, eight to ten of them," says Sarah. "The biggest were more than half an inch across. I thought I had done something wrong, but I wasn't sleeping on that side. I read the directions right away and I don't think I did anything wrong.

"This happened around February 12 or 13 and you can still see the burn marks. I read about how to treat burns, so I covered them with gauze and adhesive tape. On some marks the skin was gone, so there were open wounds. I was taking Ibuprofen for the pain. On February 19, I went to an urgent care place. The doctor prescribed topical and oral antibiotics and I had a tetanus shot. I had to use the salve and non-stick sterile pads to cover the burns. The doctor said it looked like the marks were spreading a bit from the adhesive tape I used, so I was given paper tape.

"The burns covered an area eight inches wide or more and 12 inches from top to bottom. It went from the waistband of my clothes to below the leg edge of my underwear. I had to change the gauze twice a day. On February 23, I realized that the burns were closed over and I wouldn't need the salve any more.

"It was really painful on and off for about a week. There were times when the pain was about a seven on the pain scale [between 1 and 10, 10 being the highest level of pain]. It really gets your attention.

"I wondered if there was a certain way to treat these burns, so I went online. That was when I noticed the product recalls. I went to the pharmacy and looked on the shelf. The labels were there but the product was gone. No recall signs, just no Icy Hot patches on the shelf.

"I didn't see any warnings about using two patches at once. They weren't one on top of the other; they were side by side. I didn't overlap them and there were burns under both of the patches. Some people had second-degree burns from these patches. Are they a flawed product?"

Icy Hot Heat Patches have been recalled because some consumers have suffered serious burns after using the patches. Now, some consumers are investigating the possibility of a lawsuit against the makers of the Icy Hot Heat Therapy Patches, alleging they were not properly warned about the risk of serious burns.