Skip to main content

How To Know When To Use Ice Vs Heat

Image result for ice vs heatToday, I want to address the lifelong debate - Ice or Heat? There may always be a few exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, I'm going to give you a basic guideline to follow to make the situations you find yourself in, easier.

If you have a new injury or a fresh injury, maybe you rolled an ankle, bent down and felt your back twinge, or even just woke up with a neck kink, if it's new then you 100% of the time should be using ice.

In a perfect world, you should be icing an injury for 15 minutes at a time, every hour. Unfortunately, this may not be possible while leading a busy life, so focus more on icing your injury as much as you can, as the more you ice, the quicker you'll receive positive results.

The reason that you don't want to use heat in those circumstances is because there's always inflammation. Where most people struggle with this is with back pain. We don't see any inflammation on our backs because there's such a thick muscle between where the inflamed joint is and the skin, but we feel that spasm and it often feels like heat will be good for it and in some cases, people will swear by heat. If it's worked for you in the past, fine, keep using it. The danger with heat in those circumstances though is, while you feel good immediately, one to two hours later, you'll often feel worse because the heat is bringing in more blood flow, which means more inflammation, which means you're stuck in this pain cycle.

Someone who suffers from chronic injuries and maybe has had back pain every day for 10 years, may swear by heat, but what we've been finding in our clinic, and what a lot of the research is finding is, ice still works very well in those circumstances. Even though you may have a more chronic problem, its still getting irritated every day, so you're getting fresh inflammation on top of it. But, you have to be more consistent with it, more so than with a fresh injury, otherwise it will do nothing. If you ice once and then don't ice for two days, you won't get anywhere in that circumstance.

Now, when do we recommend to use heat? If you're someone who has some arthritis and is very stiff, let's say you like to play golf but it takes you half a round to feel like your back is loosened up, or you're a tennis player and it's so hard to serve, you would use heat before that activity to get everything going - hot shower in the morning, a heat pack on the shoulder, the back, wherever you need it, and then go and do that activity. Afterwards, go back to the ice because you're going to create some inflammation.

Remember, in the big scheme of things, ice will never make you worse, but heat potentially can, so that's what you want to keep in mind when you're struggling with which method to use.

If you  have any questions or a specific injury that you'd like some more advice on, please contact us or leave a comment below, we are always happy to help in any way we can. Also, please share this blog post with anyone you think might benefit from this information.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chiropractic And Injury Prevention

As research performed in the last few decades has shown, Chiropractic is known to change & improve various aspects of nervous system function, including motor control, brain reaction times, and brain cognitive processing (the speed with which our brain processes information). So, it makes sense that if any of these areas are lacking then you should be at greater risk for injury, especially when we are talking low back injuries (due to how important brain control is over the vitally important spinal muscles). We know that if you can’t activate your trunk and core muscles before rapidly moving an arm, this can potentially result in a strain or sprain of the low back. This is known as the feed forward mechanism - if our spine doesn't first stabilize properly before we move our limbs then we greatly increase our risk of injury at the spinal level. These injuries usually start as microscopic injuries that we don't even notice but like everything else they continue to b
5 comments
Read more

Chiropractic And Risks - Can An Adjustment Actually Cause A Stroke?

There is constantly false information being spread about Chiropractic. But the reality is we have a safety record that is the envy of all other health and medical professions. Perhaps the most dangerous false myth is that Chiropractic care can, in rare circumstances cause a particular type of stroke involving the arteries in the neck. However the research completely contradicts this. We spend this short episode explaining the truth! Check out this episode!
4 comments
Read more

The Biggest Myth Around Metabolic Syndrome (Syndrome X)

There’s no official cause behind Metabolic Syndrome, although it’s treated in a very similar way to Type 2 diabetes - drugs! But, what if we are looking at these conditions the completely wrong way? In my opinion, both metabolic syndrome and Type 2 diabetes start out as a protective mechanism, where the body is trying to protect itself against the massive blood sugar spikes and inflammation created by the poor diets so many of us consume these days. The combination of processed sugar, high fructose corn syrup, and nasty vegetable oils (and other seed oils) are ruining the body, so it tries to protect itself. But this only works in the short term before the insulin resistance starts to kick in. I’ve seen so many people reverse these conditions through massive lifestyle changes that in my opinion, medications should ONLY be used short term (if at all) while teaching the person how to start reversing everything. In this episode I cover the lifestyle changes you’ll need to implement
Post a Comment
Read more