Ice or Heat for Injuries?

Many people get confused as to when to use ice and when to use heat on an injury.  In some cases, you can really make an injury (or its symptoms) worse by using the wrong therapy.  Allow me to clarify the ice vs. heat confusion for you.

If your injury is new (the clinical term is acute) then you should use ice.  Likewise, if the injury has visible inflammation then you should opt for ice - or as we Dr’s like to call it, cryotherapy.  (We use big words to confuse you so we can justify charging a lot.)

On the other hand, if you have an older injury that doesn’t have inflammation involved, like maybe a tight/achey muscle, then using heat is likely the best option.

One of the worst things you can do is to put heat on a recent and/or inflamed injury.  Cryotherapy causes vasocontriction (decreasing blood flow) to the applied area.  This helps to reduce inflammation.  Heat has the opposite effect.  So even though it may “feel better” at that moment, putting heat on an inflamed area causes MORE inflammation - not good!

I often tell people, “when in doubt, use ice.”  As long as you don’t leave it on too long (more than 15-20 minutes), you can’t really hurt yourself with ice, but you can with heat.

Tip: after doing exercise that involves a painful or injured joint, put ice on it to help reduce the inflammation that would typically follow. 

Yours in health,

~Dr Clay