I recently had infected lungs. These were greatly relieved by lying with a hot water bottle on my chest area. This was excellent until moving around was needed and the hot water bottle had no physical support.

Hot Water Bottle Waistcoat solves this problem.

It's a simple garment consisting of a basic waistcoat with a system of built-in connected hot water bottles, front and back.

This means that the lungs are surrounded by the continuous heat provided by the hot water even when walking around. A reinforced bottle enables the wearer to lie down on their back with no danger of the rear bottle leaking or bursting when subject to the additional pressure.

Deluxe version features a variable vibrator to deliver a simultaneous massage, using the hot water as a medium.
-- xenzag, May 26 2022

Good for backaches too+
-- xandram, May 26 2022


There are battery-powered heated jackets, but mostly they don't have the coils up where you want them (quick search: some do). They last a reasonable time per charge, too.
-- neutrinos_shadow, May 26 2022


It gets COLD in these parts. [+]
-- 21 Quest, May 27 2022


[+] Let's hope it's sorted out soon enough

I never seem to need heat. People buy me sweaters, I think because they see me not wearing them, and assume I can't afford them or something. Then I wear one, on a cold day. I think "this does work!" then I walk into any building and I'm like "get this thing off me, stuff it into the filing cabinet with the others and let's get on with life".

The key, is NOT layering. You need the clothes that can cope with -5C(23F) to 40C (104F) i.e. t shirt and jeans. You will be fine in any building, any outdoor environment for under an hour or so. Layering is just asking for laundry. What you need is t-shirt and jeans, and a big ski jacket for the more relentlessly arctic blasts. The real world is essentially divided into 2 temperature zones: the perfectly acceptable (though usually too hot) and the unacceptable. Layers make what is a binary decision into a weirdly granular one.
-- bs0u0155, May 27 2022


I understand why lying down would help as phlegm and water would cover less surface lung area, same as pneumonia.
I do not understand how heat helps.

How does heat help?
Not being an asshole I swear, I'm just curious how heat helps the scenario.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 27 2022


//How does heat help?//

As a scientist, dunno. Just does sometimes. Cold too.
-- bs0u0155, May 27 2022


//As a scientist, dunno. Just does sometimes. Cold too.//

Well shit.

That's something which should have been figured out a long time ago.

Placebo effect?
Swaddled and warmed so... endorphins?

Nobody has bothered to finance a study?
That's lame.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 27 2022


The effect of a hot water bottle for me was almost instant. I could breathe again with comparative ease when previously I was wheezing like someone with a serious asthma attack. Infected mucous is like glue. I think the heat decreases its viscosity and therefore loosens it. All I can report on is my experience.
-- xenzag, May 27 2022


Cold air and dry air can make asthma worse, I think directly through the autoimmune mechanism.
-- Voice, May 27 2022


There's also no working theory on how changing weather makes previously broken bones hurt. I was skeptical of the concept, but having a fair few bones bolted back together in the last few years it's definitely a thing. Some say it's the changing pressure? Really? I'm not buying that. Climb out on an aircraft is a WAY bigger change than a low pressure system moving in. Temperature? Nah, the bones are buried deep inside a homeothermic organism. Besides, searching around in a -80°C chest freezer would be way worse. Is there anything else left? Apart from psychology?
-- bs0u0155, May 27 2022


// endorphins //

It's been shown that listening to a 111 Hz tone produces endorphins, so perhaps vibrating your water jacket thingy at that frequency will make the wearer feel more betterer.
-- whatrock, May 27 2022


Have you climbed out onto the wing of a flying aircraft with a broken bone?
-- Voice, May 27 2022


I didn't know aircraft had bones
-- pocmloc, May 27 2022


//Some say it's the changing pressure? Really? I'm not buying that. Climb out on an aircraft is a WAY bigger change than a low pressure system moving in. Temperature? Nah,//

Aircraft are pressure controlled.

I slipped off of the side of a flat bed semi in my teens at thitry-some degrees below below zero with a diesel nozzle in my hand which chipped a bit of kneecap off of one knee. I couldn't feel it at first. I was too numb and shock works wonders.
Before we made it back to town I was writhing in pain and...

...well now it senses pressure change about twenty minutes before that change occurs, makes me writhe in pain again and... I rely on it as one of my senses.

Hasn't been wrong since the injury and that was several decades ago.

For what it's worth.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, May 28 2022


At the start of the pandemic, I was taking 2 hour, steaming hot showers, to "clean" my lungs. Never considered that they could be baked from the outside...
-- 4and20, May 28 2022


I have a small inflatable hot tub that I use for my arthritis. Just getting in the heat for 10 minutes makes your whole body feel better!
-- xandram, May 28 2022


Yes, to 10,000ft equivalent, slightly better for the newer composite aircraft like the Boeing 787 Binliner and the Airbus A350. So unless you're climbing out of LaPaz, you will lose pressure climbing from sea level (100kPa to about 70kPa at 10,000ft).

This is quite a lot bigger swing in a couple of minutes than you get with weather. The eye of Typhoon Tip got to 870mBar (roughly 87kPa). So it's more extreme in terms of pressure change than moving into the eye of that typhoon over 1-5 mins. Ski lifts, tall building & mine elevators also offer more rapid changes in pressure than storms can. As can moving around buildings where the HVAC isn't balanced.

We know that we CAN sense the pressure change in aircraft climb out/descent, your ears pop several times, and if you have a head cold or a problem with a filling, you can be in real pain. So for that reason, I think we have to reject simple weather-induced pressure changes.
-- bs0u0155, May 31 2022


// a variable vibrator to deliver a simultaneous massage

Maybe a bubbler inside the water bottle?
-- swimswim, May 31 2022



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