Say NO to ice.
Yesterday while I was out for a jog my thoughts started to wander to the half marathon coming up in July, I began to visualise myself finishing the 21.1kms, the big time screen reading 1hr40mins as I bolted for the line… all of a sudden I was brought back to reality after mis-stepping, rolling my ankle and falling to the ground rather clumsily. It hurt a fair bit as I brushed off my grazes and picked myself up and hobbled home…I looked for the lesson and found it was yet another reminder for me to keep my thoughts in the present moment not to mention that fact that I was also underslept 
So what do I do with my increasingly swollen ankle? Do I apply the RICE method? Do I ICE it?
Today I’m going to raise some interesting points against icing injuries. In the past I was always a big fan of icing, as a personal trainer I was taught that it was the right thing to do when a gym member injured themselves, it was the quickest way to bring about healing… Well no wrong.
Do we want to apply ice and stop the normal inflammatory process that helps heal the body? Of course not! That would be counter-intuitive right?
So why is icing an injury (particularly ligament damage) a bad idea?
Orthopedic Surgeon Dr Sherwin Ho, Surgery Director of the Sports Medicine Fellowship Program published articles in 1990 on the negative effects of ice specifically to do with ligament damage.
As explained….Dr. Sherwin Ho and associates, put a commercially-available ice wrap on one knee for 20 minutes, and on the opposite knee a wrap was placed at room temperature. The knees were then injected with dye and scanned for blood flow. The study showed that all iced knees demonstrated a decrease in arterial and soft tissue blood flow, as well as decreased bone uptake of the dye, which is a reflection of changes in both the bone blood flow and metabolic rate.
In the landmark study done at the University of Hawaii Dr. Sherwin Ho and associates research concluded that blood flow to soft tissues and skeletal metabolism decreased dramatically after only five minutes of icing a knee injury. To make matters worse and to test our belief systems ever further, he found that continuing to ice the knee for an extra 25 minutes decreased blood flow and skeletal metabolism another 400 percent! Now that’s hard to ignore. This lack of blood flow was found to significantly reduce the rate of healing and not only increase the chance of incomplete healing but also the chance of re-injury.
A few of the affects of using ice to treat injuries are:
Decrease in much-needed blood flow to the injury
Decrease in inflammatory response & local edema protection (swelling) which is a natural healing response.
The loss of protective pain sensibility after local icing which can lead to more chronic injury
One extremely important factor to remember is that ice deadens or decreases the pain sustained from an injury, this can be very dangerous because our injury can start to feel better before it’s healed and unwittingly we return to our sport only to worsen the injury, so essentially ice lulls us into a false sense of security. When a nerve comes in contact with ice, it is no longer accurately able to perceive pain. This can lead to long term or permanent ligament damage.
So is the RICE method (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) the way to go? Not only is RICE prescribed worldwide but generally anti-inflamatory drugs are recommended along with it, anti-inflammatory drugs are never an option as they are responsible for a great deal of disease development in the body. One thing I keep pondering is….Why is swelling around the joint perceived as a bad thing?
So lets look at RICE…
Rest – yes this is good but to be more specific…I would replace this with Cross-training and active low intensity rest with of course as much sleep as you care for.
Ice – No, replace with sun
Compression – Supporting the joint can be a good idea as long as blood flow isn’t impeded
Elevation – I don’t recommend doing this as elevation decreases blood flow to the area and lengthens healing time
I came up with a quick acronym, i tried to make it more specific but it would be hard to remember, my original one came to S.H.A.C.S or something.
So here it is….F.R.E.S.H.A…
F – Fruit! Eat a low acid diet to facilitate healing – LFRV
R – Rest & Sleep as much as you care for to allow for maximum healing, 10hrs a night when injured is a good goal and if you need more then get it! We can never OVERsleep. Just like we can never OVERpee.
E – Exercise differently – Cross-train to rest injury and to use different muscles/ligaments
S – Sunbake to increase blood flow & healing through the natural warmth of the sun
H – Hydrate more than usual to assist body in acid removal, at least 3 litres a day
A – Alkaline attitude, be positive and patient with your healing, see your injury healed up before it is, accept the fact that you may have to adjust your exercise routine temporarily
Ofcourse the best idea is to AVOID injuries all together by getting sufficient sleep every night (sometimes that’s 12hrs!), cross training, being hydrated so you are peeing clear at least 10 times a day, getting enough fruity carbohydrates – for me that is sometimes 45 bananas a day and keeping fat intake low, nude sunbaking and focusing on the positive side of life…if you need a break, listen to your body before it well…um…breaks
A few questions to ask yourself when you leave this blog article are…
Would we find ice anywhere in the tropics, where “mankind” originated?
What would we have done with a ligament/soft tissue injury in the tropics without ice?
Ok I’m off for now, watch your step my friends and stay off the ice!
Lovefreelee
Great blog post Freelee.
What you say about treating injuries makes total sense.
Thank you ♥
thanks so much Anne
can you come over in that swimsuit and treat my injury? i’ve got a broken heart…
oh yeh coming straight over ;-P
DR is coming too. He’s bringing is paring knife to cut off your skin, then proceed to feed your flesh to his raw paleo buddies
That’s what I’d do anyway.
lol Grok thanks for the graphic, I’d surely taste sweet anyway
Hi, Great article – just thought you should know that it is against adsense’s terms and conditions to have pictures next to their ads.
I love this post, so often we follow the self proclaimed leader without even thinking. As an ex Flight Attendant RICE was drilled into us, First Aid class always seemed dated to me. I love your new acronym FRESHA! will def use this next time it’s needed!
PS love your blog and your story to health!
thanks so much Rebecca
Soon I will be writing about my dabble with anorexia, sure to be an eye-opener! I agree with the RICE comment, breaking through the old conditioning finally!
Hey Freelee!
Thank you for confirming what i have felt for some time and wondered about myself a few times over the last few years…
As a healer who also uses her intuition ( I use my hands to heal myself and others, something which is a natural and very normal human ability which we all have but of which we are not all aware or practised in… ) I have felt that using ice is counter intuitive…
It makes no sense to me to numb or “freeze” any part of our body or an injury in the hopes that it will get better sooner! What i do on any injured or in pain part of my body is use my hands to WARM the area and increase blood and energy flow to that area… This works with headaches, any aches and pains, tightness, etc so of course it also works with injuries…
I first thought about this when an aquaintance and I were in a very light motorbike accident… We well off and both hit various parts of our legs… He used ice, i said no thanks and used my hands ( not to massage but to warm and send energy as said … ) and guess who recovered faster?
Ice just makes no sense and the research you post above proves it even further!
So thanks!
xx
Xenia
thanks for sharing Xenia, so true!
“It makes no sense to me to numb or “freeze” any part of our body or an injury in the hopes that it will get better sooner!”
I like this, it makes much more sense to me…
“What i do on any injured or in pain part of my body is use my hands to WARM the area and increase blood and energy flow to that area…”
Great to have you on my blog babe X
Have you tried running in vibram 5 fingers? They are suppose to be so much better than shoes. They aren’t suppose to allow your ankles to twist. I read the book born to run and they talk about how bad shoes are and that vibrams are the way to go. I just got a pair and it has taken awhile to get used to them, but now I love them. I ran about 13 miles in them the other day. Its the farthest I have ever run. My calves started to hurt, but then my body really connected to the ground and I was in this meditative state while running and listening to the sound they make while hitting the ground. It was really amazing.
Hey Linzi
yes I have tried vibrams, I think they are great for natural terrain but not for the hard road or pavement. Were you running on the ground or road? Sounds great !
sounds like good thinking, and also sounds counter intuitive so it must make sense! Medical community is so wrong about nutrition, they could very well be wrong about “Rice”. It never worked for me. Only thing about the sun is the heat causes inflamation and that causes swelling, does it not? Are u saying that for a bad injury, a break, or anything, do not put ice Freelee? The pain relief and swelling is what the ice helps with, but I get what u are saying about other considerations, and it makes complete sense! Thanks, Free!
Hey Rich, lovely to see you here
)
Yes I’m saying no ice for any of the injuries you mentioned Rich, it impedes healing blood flow to the injury, intuitively this can’t be a good thing. Glad it made sense my friend X
hey free!
thanks for the post and i am glad to read it in this period of time, where after having sprained my ankle ~1month ago, and been doing the ice thing, i am still hurt.
since i am on a trip now, i didn’t get to ice much and since yesterday, w/o any icing, i feel good. the thing is that this never heals. keeps coming back and i get re-injured. so, i guess i will do the natural way. no icing and see if i wil heal soon, b/c i have so many races to come.
all the best for your recovery as well
acey
Thanks Acey, I appreciate your well wishes and you sharing your experience. It’s such a paradigm shift hey? Yes try the natural way because you are only doing your ligaments damage by icing (possibly permanent). Let me know how you go. I did a 15km race the other day, all better!
Thanks Freelee! I didn’t know about this at all.
Awesome glad to be of assistance!
cool thanks for popping in Baran
I didn’t know either until a year or so ago
Good post. Im currently lieing with my knee in pain….it starts to hurt when i ran very long
thanks Anna, take a break if it’s hurting, don’t try to do too much too soon
Never liked the idea of icing. Chi activation and circulation has always been my method of healing. Also getting myself into trancey states and prompting the body to heal itself from that level. (Gandharva Veda CDs did the trick nicely for me in the past. Feldenkreis Method derived ideas also).
Be nice to your body. Get out of the asphalt or pavement. These surfaces were not made for human consumption.
My favourite were the high-altitude runs. I am sure there are a still a few mountain climbers back in the native country who tell stories about this apparition of a half naked man who appeared in the middle of the blizzard, waved “Hello” and went on racing the mountain goats … I love the taste of the water off the melting ice or snow. Very potent!
When I discovered the role of Breathing everything changed in my life, not only running. (Though it probably did make me a bit lazy (or wise) about exercise as I needed less of it
). When the body is properly warmed up (excited should be the term), then neither the surface, nor the distance matter.
Have you checked out Slow Burn by Stu Mittelman and the by now the old classic by John Duillard, I think it was called Mind, Body, Sport?
It’s a huge subject. I can definitely write a couple of books on this one
Your post also brings me back in my army days when my body naturally became vegetarian in order to cope with the inhuman level of physical exertion … But fun too. Nothing like breaking through limitations of the mind disguised as body limitations!
The concept and reasoning behind icing is to achieve reactive vasodilation. It is the body’s reaction to localized icing. Basically you constrict the blood vessels with the initial cooling and in response the body dramatically increases the blood flow once the ice is removed. So yes there is restricted blood flow when the ice is applied, but the net effect is a significant increase in blood flow. It’s like taking one step back to move three steps forward.
Hey James, yes I am aware of that but to me this is very counter-intuitive, restricting blood flow immediately to the injury will definitely hamper overall rate of healing and subsequently lead to incomplete healing.
When we cool an injury by icing, we slow the circulation, which slows the healing process and tends to “trap” the heat in layers around the injury, as well as the liquids or the lymph. This can cause additional symptoms to manifest and become chronic, preventing a complete healing
Icing the injury increases the chance of incomplete healing. Why? Because it decreases blood flow to the injured ligaments and tendons. Which in turn leads to an increased chance of re-injury or the development of chronic pain. It has been proven that icing does NOT increase overall bloodflow, especially during the crucial early stages.
Anything that decreases the metabolic rate or blood supply to the ligaments will further promote the decline of the ligaments, and profoundly delay their healing.
Freelee,
thanks for writing this. i new about ice, but you made me learn about elevation now…..that makes sense to not elevate things that need blood to heal.
Awesome D, glad it has helped! My ankle is feeling amazing now, all ice free
When I’ve done the same thing you did, I used an ACE bandage to keep the swelling down. I’ve run a few 1/2′s 1:40 is a pretty respectable tr me, I hope you make it!
30 BAD is an interesting site. A bit culltish. People tend to have the conclusion and then try to fit the information to prove it. There are many ways to go in life. I believe in letting others peacefully live the life they choose if it isn’t too damaging to others. We all do a little damage
Hey DrJ, lol about 30bad being a cult, some say that, pretty healthy cult to be in if you ask me (says the cult leader).
Our lifestyle surely does the least harm to the planet, our animal friends and eachother, afterall its just fruits, greens and some nuts and seeds…
I didn’t end up getting 1:40, aimed a bit high! Got 1:48 which I was happy with. I will get there though.
Thanks for popping in
Thanks freelee, i will try FRESHA, sound interesting, RICE is so much old fashion cure for me. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Freelee, it is me Arne from Germany.
Thank you very much for this article.
The doctor told me to ice my swollen right food, though he thougth the swollen tissues get away,
But I have not done it like he recommend it to me and I still have in the evening a swollen right foot.
Your article helped me again to tell me that it was right what I have done, not to ice it and accept the swollen foot as long as it is there.
But I need to know whether I do the correct training and rest.
I do in the morning sit-up´s, gymnastik, surya-namaskars, knee-bends and chin-up´s and now I start also rope-skipping without a rope just a short term, because I miss it so much to run, so I try just to do it as long as there is a great feeling by doing it.
When I have a shower in the morning I like to have short time cool water in the beginning when I have a warm body through my training, between I let cold water at my leg for a very short time like in the sauna and at the end I take a short cold water shower. I like that, it makes me awake.
The same when I swim in cold-water-river in summer, it gives me some more nerve power I think.
As long as I have still the wound I do not swim. Unfortunately, I only come to the ocean 2-3 times per year and only in the summer. It is 200 km away.
Do you recommend to swim in swimhalls with artificial sole (saltwater) in it.
But that cold water I think is not comparable to icing some injured spots, right?
What do you think about sauna, cold-warm-cold shower and cold-water-river swimming like Jack LaLanne and triathlets do it.
By the way my wound is not as deep like it was after it opens.
Does the flesh comes grow more and more until the cut is filled with new flesh again and then the skin wil come? That would be great.
Winter comes here in Germany so it is becoming too hard to eat no avocados and nuts. Sometimes it is very cold when it comes to detoxification because of eating only fruits.
Thanks a lot Freelee for your contributive and real free and lovely work.
PS: First thought about 45 bananas a day is: too much. I need to eat in the afternoon 2-3 but never more than 5. Do you eat oritos baby-bananas or big ones? But then I thought about that chimpanze apes love bananas and figs a lot and they eat a lot more than 3 bananas a day. So I will not limited myself anymore if I want to eat more than 3 bananas a day.I love bananas. Arne Banane
uups I miss to cross on the notification for my comment, so I did it now.
You’re so right Freelee – http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-10/foas-ssd100410.php