We often hear the question “Should I use ice or heat to treat my soft tissue injury?”
For many years, most of us have been taught to R.I.C.E. for acute injury. Rest, ice, compression, and elevate. Ice does decrease swelling and pain. However, is it really in our best interest to reduce our body’s natural inflammatory response with ice or will that only slow down the healing process?
Let’s take a look at the inflammatory response to injury. First, there is an initial trauma. Then vasodilation occurs allowing more blood flow to the injury site. This brings up leukocytes and macrophages (types of white blood cells) to clean up the injury. More fluid at the injury site causes swelling or edema, pain, and limited range of movement. The lymphatic system then drains out this fluid and waste (broken down tissue) so that the healing can commence.
What does ice do? It decreases circulation and can block this regenerative process. The addition of ice may even increase leakage of interstitial fluid back into the tissue. Neither Traditional Chinese Medicine nor Ayurvedic medicine recommend ice for injury as a treatment protocol for these reasons. They both encourage flow for healing.
It’s a bit of a misnomer that inflammation is bad. Taking anti-inflammatory medications (which can be really hard on the gut) or ice to completely decrease the swelling may not be the most therapeutic approach. Yes, inflammation causes decreased range of motion and pain. This is your body’s way of telling you to rest it. It’s true, inflammation does need to clear out so as not to damage surrounding tissues. However, we should be supporting our body’s natural drainage process to encourage healing, rather than trying to restrict it.
So what do we recommend?
