Heat or Cold??
02 July 2012
So the question I always get asked by my patients is which is better? Heat or Cold?
When an injury is new/fresh, there will be a certain amount of inflammation. In extreme cases, the area will be red, hot to the touch and the pain will be very sharp. Some people would even describe a burning feeling also. This is inflammation at its worst, and ice can ease the pain although recent research has shown ice my slow the healing process.
Heat can be used from 6 hours and onwards, when the initial inflammation has calmed down. Heat is very good for older injuries. It helps to bring bloodflow into the area and it helps to loosen the muscles therefore easing the pain.
Now with all this info, I have had patients in who without knowing have put heat on a fresh injury and it felt great! And I’ve had patients in using ice on chronic injuries and it eased the pain.
Just be very careful with heat on fresh injuries. You may find as some of my patients found, it will feel good but as I stated earlier, if the inflammation is bad enough, heat will make it worse. Take it off and ice the area immediately.
The general rule of thumb is ice on fresh acute injuries for pain relief, and heat on older chronic injuries.
(Wrap any ice or bag of peas in a light tea-towel to avoid ice burns and the same with heat. Never put ice on for more than 10/15 minutes on fleshy areas and no more than 5/10 minutes on bony areas)