Icing to Heal Injuries – Alleviate your Pain with Ice

Icing as a treatment may sound both shocking and funny. You must be wondering how a little piece of ice can work when you are injured and in pain? However, the reality is that icing an injured body part is an important part of treatment. Icing injuries can be effective for strains, sprains, bruises and overuse injuries (known to runners). Since you can obviously not hold ice in your hands and use it, you will need ice packs for injuries.

If the procedure is followed correctly, icing an injury can speed recovery. It is a medical recommendation runner’s get most of the time. Pulled a muscle? Ice it. Injured knee? Ice it! Ice can decrease inflammation and pain and can enhance healing. However, not following the right procedure may damage the surrounding muscle.

Therefore, here are the dos and don’ts that will make using ice pack for injuries crystal clear:

Do: after a run, if you have any chronic issue or an acute injury, ice the area as soon as possible to avoid excessive swelling and initiate healing.

Don’t: do not apply ice before you run. There is no point in numbing a body part before it is injured. This might even result in blocking signals to the brain that would tell you to back off.

Do: You should ideally ice your injuries for 15 to 20 minutes. This will have a positive effect. Icing for less than this will cool your skin but will have minimal effect on underlying muscle.

Don’t: apply it for more than 20 minutes or you will risk facing an ice burn or, worse yet, frostbite. Moreover, if your skin starts getting red, take it as a warning signal that now you are pushing it way too much. Remove the ice if the ice is so cold that it hurts.

Do: apply the ice pack for injuries up to 5 times a day to maximize its benefit. Remember to take a 45 minute break in applications. This keeps tissue temperature low to minimize inflammation.

Don’t: an injury heals from the application of ice in the days following the trauma. But if your knee has been nagging you since or the symptoms worsen, see a doctor.

Follow these simple rules when using an ice pack for injuries. If you follow the right way, I am sure you will not need to see a doctor and this will result as the best way to heal running injuries.

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