Should I apply heat or ice?

                There are many things you can do at home when you just hurt yourself.  The most basic way to treat any pain would be to apply ice or heat to the area.  Which one is best?  Often you will hear to apply heat to the area.  Other times you will hear to use ice.  Which one is best?  Here is an explanation of what you should do when you just injured yourself. 

                Appling heat to the area will decrease the pain in the short term.  It overstimulates the nerves (thermoreceptors) that say your skin is hot.  By doing this the pain nerves (nocioceptors) cannot send their pain signals as much.  Which in turn decreases the pain. However, when you apply heat to a new injury it makes the inflammation worse. Increasing the pain after heating the area.  Inflammation is a fancy word that describes swelling (edema), redness, warm, and pain.  What happens when you injure an area, our bodies first response it to send lots of fluid to the injured part.  The fluid contains lots of little things in it to start the healing process.  This is good news! Our bodies already try to fix themselves before we have even figured out that we are hurt.  Unfortunately, the body thinks if a little is good, then a lot must be better!  This is bad news.  Most injuries swell up so much that they become painful, and throb.  This is due to so much swelling (edema), that the put pressure on the nerves in the area, which then hurts more!

                When you are applying heat to a freshly injured area, you a contributing to inflammation process.  Heat dilates (opens) the blood vessels more to allow for more swelling to occur.  Therefore, the injured area becomes warm, and red.  There is more blood that is being pushed to the injured area.  With more blood and swelling there is not as much room for the nerves to be comfortable.  The pressure is pushing on the nerves, they send signals to the brain that this area is uncomfortable.  You experience pain. 

                If you have a new injury and only put heat on it, the healing process will take much longer.  This is when it turns into a chronic pain and last for greater than 6 weeks.  The longer the area is inflamed the longer the healing will take.  The slower you will be able to return to do the things that you want to do.

Why is ice so much better?

                Instead of over dilating the vessels in the injured area, we want to shrink (constrict) the blood vessels.  We need to control the amount of swelling to the injury, so it can start the healing process quicker and more efficiently.  Therefore, we apply ice to the injury.  Ice will control the amount of swelling and keep the pain down because the swelling will not be pushing on the nerves. Also, applying ice overstimulates the thermoreceptors like heat.  If these nerves are really active, then the pain will not be noticed as well.   Ice should be your first thought whenever you have a fresh injury!

                 

                Dr. Andrew P. Bauman, Chiropractic Centers of Short Pump