You shouldice an injuryfor 20 minutes at a time.
This article discusses the use of ice on injuries.
It also addresses how long to apply ice safely and how to make your own ice pack.
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Longer applications may cause tissue damage.
you’re able to apply ice several times each day.
Is It OK to Use Ice for 30 minutes at a Time?
This is not advised.
How Many Days Should You Ice an Injury?
Ice for 15 to 20 minutes at a time.
Wait two hours between ice sessions before applying ice again.
Do so as often as necessary until the pain and swelling go away.
When to Stop Icing
You may not be able to tolerate the full 20 minutes.
Does Ice Speed Healing?
While icing an injury can help reduce pain and inflammation, ice doesn’t speed up healing.
Your recovery time won’t be shorter because you treated your injury with ice.
When you injure a body part, your body goes through the inflammatory process.
Swelling and pain happen as a result of this process.
Ice can help control those symptoms.
Ice causesvasoconstriction, a narrowing of blood vessels.
When this happens, less blood reaches the injured area.
This helps keep swelling down.
Ice also helps decrease pain signals.
Heat can help relax tight or strained muscles.
It can also be helpful if you have joint pain resulting from arthritis.
Heat is not appropriate just after an injury, however, or when you have swelling and inflammation.
Can You Use Ice and Heat Together?
For acute injuries, it’s best not to combine ice and heat together.
Heat won’t help in the first 48 hours.
Heat and ice serve different purposes.
Heat brings more blood to an area, whereas ice reduces blood flow.
Heat is used to reduce joint stiffness and muscle spasm.
Ice is used to ease pain and tenderness as well as reduce swelling and inflammation.
For some conditions, likechronic pain, multiple therapies may be needed to find relief.
For people with back pain, icing for the first 48 hours after pain starts can ease symptoms.
After those 48 hours, applying heat can help the muscles relax.
If you don’t have one, you’re free to make a refreezable one at home.
This will protect you from frostbite.
Summary
Ice helps reduce the pain and swelling of an injury.
When the injury feels numb, remove the ice.
You could develop frostbite and tissue death.
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