Why is icing too long bad

They should then be reapplied three or more times per day for the first few days, for 10 to 20 minutes at a time.

Although ice can be helpful, it's always beneficial to consult with your doctor when injured. Follow their medical advice for treating your specific injury, allowing for the best and fastest recovery possible. This treatment strategy is mainly used to help reduce the pain and swelling that occurs with some injuries. However, icing an injury isn't not always the best choice because, in some cases, using ice can delay injury healing. Talking to your doctor can help determine whether ice is appropriate and can be used to enhance the healing process.

Ice is generally most effective when the injury is acute or happened in the recent past. If the injury is longer term more than six weeks old or more chronic in nature, heat might work better instead. Here are common mistakes people make when icing an injury.

Leaving ice on an injury for too long can cause more harm than good. Because ice constricts the blood vessels, it can reduce the blood flow to the injured area and slow the healing process. The ideal time to ice an injury is immediately after the trauma, and then only for about 10 minutes at a time waiting another 10 minutes at least between applications.

It's important to allow the tissues to 'warm up' again before returning ice to the injury. Ice should not be needed after the first 24 hours unless your doctor recommends it to reduce active swelling or to relieve pain. Done incorrectly, ice may cause frostbite and damage to the delicate tissues of the skin. While exposure to cold can ease pain and swelling, ice packs can also stop blood flow if left on the skin too long.

If the injury is in an area with little fat or muscle beneath the skin, such as fingers, take the compress off after 5 to 10 minutes maximum, wait 10 minutes, and reapply.

There are a few additional things you can along with icing an injured area. Here are some options to consider. Icing alone is not a cure-all and therefore, even if you follow the recommendations for safe icing of an injury, you must also rest the injured joint immediately after the injury occurs. It is recommended to not bear weight on an injured joint for the first 24 to 48 hours. Continuing the play sports with an injury may prolong the healing process, so check with your doctor regarding when you can return to sports after an injury.

While R. A long period of immobilization can lead to decreased muscle strength and joint stiffness. Optimum loading refers to starting gentle motions after a short period of rest following an injury and gradually progressing the level of exercise to improve range of motion and strength.

Bone, tendon, ligament, and muscle all require some degree of loading to stimulate healing. The key is to increase the movement slowly.

While you may need to push through some discomfort, stop if you experience any pain. That means local swelling at an injury site will increase, not decrease, with the use of ice. Remember: having very sore quads because of a workout is different from a torn quadriceps only by degrees. Inflammation and swelling have been deemed the enemy, but only swelling is actually bad. But you can have not enough evacuation. How, then, does the body clear swelling? Most of the particles are too large to move through the vessels of the circulatory system, so they must instead be evacuated through the vessels of the lymphatic system.

The lymphatics, though, are a passive system, fully reliant on muscle activation; movement is necessary to propel fluid through the vessels. Sitting still with an ice pack creates the exact opposite effect. Think about it. Do you think our hunter-gatherer ancestors rolled their ankles, dug some ice out of a snowbank, sat down and stopped chasing dinner?

It's more likely that they forged on, and the movement facilitated healing. Pushing a sprained ankle may sound ill-advised, but a study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons showed that loading damaged tissue — that is, applying force to it — accelerates healing of bone and muscle tissue, while inactivity promotes aberrant tissue repair. Moving sore muscles is easy. Instead, Kluber does light-resistance exercises that target his rotator cuff muscles after he pitches, naturally activating muscles and moving fluid out of tissues damaged during his starts.

Acute injuries, of course, are more complicated. Weaknesses: These do not stay cold as long as ice packs, but cold gel packs will cool the skin faster than ice bags and so deserve greater caution. Can I reuse the pack? A: Absolutely! Cold Ice and Evercold gel ice packs can be reused to chill food and beverages, but they are not intended to be applied to the body due to the extreme low temperature.

Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search. Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Term Paper Why is icing too long bad? Term Paper. There still needs to be some time for rest but in some injuries poor advice is often given such as bedrest for 2 weeks after an acute back injury or to use crutches for 2 weeks post ankle sprain. Reduce Load and then Reload — Rest from strenuous activities when painful including walking long distances if you are limping but slowly start to build up movement.

Discuss with your physiotherapist the best exercises to get your injury moving more again. Ice — Know that there is actually limited evidence to support icing and that it may actually be detrimental to the overall healing process. Avoid taking non steroidal anti inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen especially in the first 3 days. Elevate: Keep your injured limb up above your heart height whenever possible in the first days.

This helps to reduce excess swelling from pooling in the injured area and helps the lymphatic drainage.