Should You Ice An Injury?
For years, every time we get injured we’ve been told to ice it. And now, anytime we get hurt our first reaction is to ice it. Everyone remembers the acronym RICE, which stands for rest, ice, compression, and elevation. But did you know that RICE is outdated and isn’t the best approach to treating injuries? Yes, even the person who came up with RICE said it’s not the best approach. In the past couple of years, we’ve developed a new approach to treating injuries, and guess what? Ice is not on the list.
Why not use ice?
Researchers have started to prove that ice may delay our body’s healing. Now, there’s poor evidence to suggest that but there’s no evidence that ice actually helps our body heal. They believe that by using ice you are doing a couple of things to the local tissue.
Slowing blood flow: By slowing the blood flow we reduce the amount of inflammatory cells to the area which starts the healing process.
It could cause local tissue death: Due to the same process of decreased blood flow to the area, there will also be less oxygen getting to that tissue which in turn results in some local tissue death.
Why use ice?
Ice still has its benefits. For one, it’s great for numbing the area and providing some pain relief. If you’re in a lot of pain and just want some relief, throw some ice on there. Ice is also good at reducing inflammation. Now this is similar to number one on why not to use ice, just looking at it from the opposite point of view. Let’s say you sprain your ankle but you need to use it still, by putting some ice with compression on your ankle you can reduce the amount of inflammation to the area allowing you more mobility and use of the ankle. But remember, by reducing the inflammation in the area you may also delay the healing process.
So should you use ice?
The answer, unfortunately, is it depends. It depends on your long-term and short-term goals. I have moved away from it. Unless you’re in a lot of pain, I typically have patients avoid using ice. I would prefer we get on the path toward healing as quickly as possible and avoid any possibility of delaying the healing process. That’s me though.
Stay tuned for future blogs where I will go deeper into the new acronym we should be using to recover from injuries instead of using RICE.
And if you’ve suffered from an injury and want help getting back to the things you love, send me an email at resiliencechiro@gmail.com. I’d love to talk to you about how I can help.
Talk soon,
Andrew
