For general, at-home neck pain care, icing and heat can be essential. It’s also important to keep good posture and to do gentle therapeutic exercise, but let’s talk more about icing and heat. One or the other will help under different circumstances. For instance, cold works best during early acute pain and a neck pain flare-up. Heat, however, works best after a day or so once the acute pain has calmed down. Just be careful with icing and using heat. Applications should be limited to 15 to 20 minutes at a time, and with 2-hours breaks in between to allow the skin to recover. For chronic neck pain, icing and heat can help in the short term, but only in the short term. Long-term, professional treatment is usually necessary.