How to relieve muscle pains
Most people have used an ice pack at some point – you may have fallen on a rock in the garden, slammed your knee into the bed, or strained a muscle while out power walking.
Applying an ice pack has been well documented as a way to reduce the swelling and inflammation, and get you on your way to recovery. But in fact new research shows that this may not be the case.
Earlier this year some Australian researchers looked into exactly whether the application of ice leads to faster healing than no ice at all.s. The other group had no ice.
The researchers were very surprised to find that the rats that were treated with ice were slower to heal than their un-iced rat friends.
“Our study showed that icing immediately after muscle contusion injury delayed inflammation, the formation of new blood vessels and the formation of new muscle fibers up to four weeks after the original injury,” says Jonathan Peake, the lead researcher on the study and a research fellow from the Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation at Queensland University of Technology.
It’s been thought that reducing the inflammation helps to speed up the healing process, but in fact the inflammation has an important role to play in the healing of muscular injury.
Peake suggests reconsidering your ice pack use, as well as the use of anti-inflammatory drugs, in order to manage bruising or muscle damage. When there is damage to your ligaments (such as twisting your ankle) ice is still advisable.
The new recommendation for treatment of muscle injury is having a period of rest followed by some light activity.
Peake continues, “Mobilising the limb will help to stimulate blood flow to the muscle, which will aid the regeneration process” You can give the ibuprofen a miss too apparently. “Taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs is not necessarily beneficial, because it interferes with the body's natural healing process.”