Should you really be icing acute injuries?
It has always been customary to throw on an ice pack for any injury, especially acute injuries The question we’ll be posing is….should you? Or maybe the better question is…do you NEED to? Firstly, let’s address why people think they should ice.
Why icing?
Conventionally, the thought is that icing could help reduce swelling, thus helping healing occur quicker. However…this may not be what you actually need. In fact, inflammation is a normal part of the process for healing to occur and required to progress to the next stage of healing, that’s right, inflammation is good! So, when you place an ice pack on an injury it MAY actually blunt the healing process and creating somewhat of a roadblock.
An analogy
Think of it as a car accident scene. When an accident occurs, there’s plenty of debris on the road, shattered glass, car parts etc. 911 is called and emergency services arrive to the scene. However, suddenly a barricade is put up and now the emergency crew can’t access the area. That barricade could be thought of as the equivalent of putting ice on an injury. Those important white blood cells (emergency crew) can’t reach the area along with cells needed for tissue repair/regeneration.
So is icing horrible?
Let’s make one thing clear, a little bit of ice probably won’t ruin your recovery…it’s not the devil! If you have extreme discomfort, it may help reduce this temporarily and that could be beneficial in some circumstances. But the growing consensus is that just because pain is decreased doesn’t mean you’re fixing the injury, removing any swelling, and at worst, it could delay the recovery process. In summary, there are other areas with tangible benefits beyond pain relief that have more benefits overall.
So what should you do?
Instead of trying to change swelling with icing, it’s better to assist the evacuation of the fluid with some mild movement. With small muscle contractions you can activate the lymphatic system to remove swelling, get muscles firing to delay atrophy, and decrease pain to help the tissue heal faster. Oftentimes movement helps decrease your pain AND you get the benefits of movement such as maintenance of muscle mass and confidence in the process. An example facilitating this evacuation process is doing ankle pumps when you have a lower body injury.
Stay tuned!
A shift has occurred from RICE (rest, ice, compression, and elevation) to a new acronym, PEACE & LOVE (Protect, Elevate, Avoid anti-inflammation, Compression, Educate & Load, Optimism, Vascularisation, Exercise). In a future blog post, we’ll be writing about this new acronym and how we use it to guide recovery from an acute injury.
Are you in the Dundas / Hamilton area? Dan Marynowski (author of this blog) is a registered massage therapist with The Movement Physio & Performance and he’d love to work with you!
