The type of knee injury will help determine the proper ice or heat regimen moving forward. For new acute injuries, the RICE method should be used immediately following an injury, and then heat can be applied after two to three days to increase blood flow. For chronic injuries, pain, stiffness, and soreness without swelling, heat may be more appropriate. Heat therapy may help with arthritis, knee pain, and stiff joints by using heat packs, pads, and submerging the affected area in warm water. In some cases, gel packs may be more effective than traditional heat packs, due to their ability to form around the joint and penetrate tissues.
There are many products on the market that penetrate deep tissues for effective heat treatment. Whether dry heat or moist heat may be more appropriate depends on the condition. A heating pad is an example of a dry heat source, whereas a warm bath is a popular moist heat therapy. Research has shown that moist heat may be superior to dry heat when it comes to penetrating deeper tissues. Therefore, moist heat may be more effective for treating denser muscle tissues, such as the quadriceps.
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Physical therapy may be an option if your pain is causing mobility limitations. In general, it’s okay to use ice for as long as you have pain, swelling, and inflammation. A typical protocol is to apply ice for 10 minutes at a time once per hour for the first 72 hours.
If you have an injury that you plan on icing, keep in mind the following tips. Verywell Health uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy. Reduce pain by numbing the area and by limiting the effects of swelling.
Why You Shouldnt Ice An Injury Or Rice
It may also help reduce pain caused by fibromyalgia and other chronic conditions. Heat treatment may also alleviate spasm pains and cramps that affect your shoulders. Heating a sore or injured muscle increases blood flow and metabolic activity which leads to a loosening of muscle tissue. Warming an injured area relaxes stiffness and relieves pain in aching joints, such as those affected by arthritis. As much as possible, try to keep your head elevated from the time you incur your injury until the day when it finally heals. The current recommendation for how long to ice an injury is minutes every 2-3 hours, for the first 2-3 days.
It promotes proper shoulder alignment, which can then help your injuries heal faster. Since it also compresses the shoulder joint, the strap can help reduce swelling, too. If you apply heat to your injured shoulder, it should be more warm than hot. Using excessive heat can put you at risk of burns and scalds.
As it stands there aren’t too many reasons to use heat either. Clearly heat will increase blood flow to the injured area, but in a similar vein to ice, we don’t want to dictate terms to the body. By heating an injury we run the risk of driving too much fluid to the area. This is problematic if we don’t also increase the rate at which we remove that fluid. Otherwise, we’ll see increased swelling and delayed progression of healing.
You may find you’re already benefitting from thermal therapy without even realizing it. If taking a hot shower or bath every morning is very soothing to your joints, then you’re already reaping the benefits of heat therapy. Complete inactivity can prevent your body from healing as quickly. A long time of complete immobility will lead to weaker muscles and stiff joints. When you ice your knee, you need to protect the skin first.
Applying Ice & Heat To Hamstring Injury
This can occur even if the skull is not clearly damaged. The accumulation of blood may eventually put pressure on the brain and cause brain damage. Head injuries are often not serious, but brain injuries can be. Never sleep with a hot pack, it can cause skin burns.
This cold sensation will last approximately three to five minutes until a burning sensation appears. The burning sensation will fade into an ache, followed by numbness. Beware that once numbing occurs, remove and discontinue the ice.
Instead, they’re simply supplemental ways to reduce pain, inflammation, and stress which can aid in the recovery process. A physical therapist will often use heat and/or ice as part of their overall therapy strategy, depending on the individual’s condition. When you use ice, you cool down the soft tissues i.e. skin, muscles, ligaments, tendons etc. This causes the blood vessels to constrict, known as vasoconstriction which reduces the blood flow to the area and therefore the bleeding into an area. By reducing this blood flow, you reduce the amount of swelling. Even a hot shower or back can provide pain relief and muscle relaxation when heat is called for.
If you have had a recent injury where swelling is a problem, you should be using ice. Ice packs can help minimize swelling around the injury, reduce bleeding into the tissues, and reduce muscle spasm and pain. Both ice and heat should be part of an overall rehabilitation plan. Neither of these methods will work in injury or pain recovery on their own.
Heat should not be used for the first 72 hours due to resultant vasodilation, which promotes tissue swelling. Heat is normally used after the acute phase to dissipate blood pooling that occurred. Compression, such as an ACE bandage, and elevation of the injured area reduce pooling of blood, which will diminish inflammation. Luba has certifications in Pediatric Advanced Life Support , Emergency Medicine, Advanced Cardiac Life Support , Team Building, and Critical Care Nursing. She received her Master of Science in Nursing from the University of Tennessee in 2006.
Then place an ice pack or bag of ice over the protective layer and directly on the area that hurts. Keep reading to learn all the tricks and tips for how to ice your knee effectively. It works by stabilizing the injured muscles while also managing muscle temperature.
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