Heat or Ice? What should you use for injury treatment?

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· Acute injuries are a result of direct trauma to the body. Non-acute is an overwork injury.

· Ice slows blood cells giving pain relief and limiting inflammation.

· Heat increases blood flow aiding healing process

Treating a new injury can be tricky for someone with limited medical expertise. If you asked five medical experts, you could end up with five answer, sparking the age-old question; should you use ice or heat as treatment?

Injuries are placed into two acute and non-acute, which is the major factor in whether to apply heat or ice.

An acute injury is direct trauma to a part of the body such as a broken bone or a torn muscle. Where-as a non-acute injury, is also known as an over-use injury, such as back pain due to a build-up of stress.

According to physiotherapist Danny Healion, when it comes to acute injuries it’s best to “apply ice for the first 24-48 hours and then apply heat”, he continued, “ice results in the vasoconstriction of bloods cells, which limits the bleeding and the inflammatory response.”

Once the inflammatory stage has past, applying heat will promote blood flow and will aid the healing process, which is called the Vasodilation effect.

Healion, followed on, “for non-acute injuries, heat can be applied straight away, which results in promoting blood flow and aiding with healing the injury.”

In recent times, newer theories have come to light on whether heat or ice should be used. The theories suggest that there is no significant vasoconstriction and ice will only give pain relief. Doctor Sutterer and Danny Healion both suggested some medical professionals believe the inflammatory response is important in the recovery process.

Due to new theories believing, that the inflammatory response is a good thing, Doctor Sutterer said “things like anti-inflammatory medication could be a bad thing for recovery”.

This means that if someone applies newer theories, the best option could be to apply nothing at all and let the injury heal on its own.

The whole discussion of whether heat or ice is a better treatment. The main thing is, if you are to apply heat or ice, it should be the one that allows you to get freer movement.