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Faith's avatar

Ice for a drink, maybe. Not your knee. Recent research has blown up the idea of applying ice to injuries: it actually delays healing. Your body already knows how to heal itself and artificially chilling the tissue is not part of its strategy!

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PJ's avatar

Sometimes I need ice for the pain. But alternating with warmth, i I can tolerate it, can help get things moving better too. It all depends on what my body requires that day. I do my best to listen to it.

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Faith's avatar

Good. Just be aware that more than 10 minutes of ice application will trigger a rebound reaction and do more harm than good.

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Faith's avatar

This is "apples and oranges" different. This guy is triggering hormesis by creating a physiological effect similar to a quick cold water dunk after a sauna. He can get away with such a low temperature for 3 minutes because of the low Specific Heat of air: not a dangerous amount of heat can be lost via conduction or radiated into the air in that short period of time.

Conversely, a serious amount of heat will be lost quickly from tissue exposed directly to an ice pack, deeply chilling the tissue, causing constriction of blood vessels, and potentially causing cold injury, including pain and swelling.

Longer exposure to whole-body cold will cause hypothermia, immune suppression, possibly frostbite, and potentially death.

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LJ's avatar

Not saying you're wrong at all but can you post a link? Even my Phd naturopath cum chiro Dc who I trust enormously (he was one of the first I personally heard who spoke against all this scamdemic madness BTW) believes in alternating ice/heat. But he also states 10-15 min and cautions against long use.

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Faith's avatar

I didn't locate the original article I read, yet, but there is lots of info out there if you look. Here is one:

Does Cryotherapy Improve Outcomes With Soft Tissue Injury? - PubMed

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15496998/

The Abstract includes the statements:

"The authors reported ice to be no more effective than rehabilitation only with regard to pain, swelling, and range of motion." "Lastly, in 8 studies, there seemed to be little difference in the effectiveness of ice and compression compared with compression alone."

And: "There were two well conducted randomised controlled trials, one showing supportive evidence for the use of a cooling gel and the other not reaching statistical significance. Four animal studies showed that modest cooling reduced oedema but excessive or prolonged cooling is damaging. There were two systematic reviews, one of which was inconclusive and the other suggested that ice may hasten return to participation.

"Conclusion: There is insufficient evidence to suggest that cryotherapy improves clinical outcome in the management of soft tissue injuries."

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/emj.2007.051664

Application of heat may "feel good" but the effect it has on dilating blood vessels makes it ineffective as therapy because the added heat is quickly removed and will not penetrate deep into the muscles. Ultrasound does much better.

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PJ's avatar

What about the treatments people like Wahlberg use after working out to get their bodies to abnormally cold temperatures.

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