RICE is OUt. PEACE & LOVE.
Protection: avoid activities that cause increased pain (during or after) the first 3 days after injury.
While I am not one to adopt the “if it hurts, stop” mindset, there is a time and a place where the focus of your movement should be more about your body healing than getting better/faster/stronger. The inflammatory stage of an injury lasts about 72 hours and, in short, brings in a lot of cool things our body makes to the injured tissue to help it heal.
Elevation: elevate the injured tissue above the heart to decrease swelling and inflammation as long and as frequently as possible.
This one doesn’t have much evidence but many people do find pain relief with elevation. The idea is that you’re using gravity in assisting to promote removing undesired fluid out of the area. It may not have a ton of evidence to support it but there is no evidence that it is harmful or will slow healing - so if it feels good to elevate your injured tissue, do it!
Avoid Anti-Inflammatory: anti-inflammatories are ice, ibuprofen, naproxen, etc that decrease pain and the inflammatory response.
While this sounds good when you have that bad sprain, research is finding that using anti-inflammatories can actually slow healing as it decreases blood flow that is carrying healing factors to the injured area. If you’re unable to sleep due to pain for multiple nights or your being severely limited in doing what needs to be done because of pain, consider compression and elevation first. If that doesn’t work, anti inflammatories (or other pain relieving things) in moderation.
Compression: using elastic bandages, ace wrap, taping, compression sleeves, etc
In my experience with pain, whether acute, sub-acute, chronic, whatever - compression is money honey. It works well to decrease that swelling that causes throbbing, improve proprioception (your body knowing where your limb is in space), and can help with decreasing pain.
Education: listen to your body - it’s telling ya what it needs. Avoid unnecessary medical investigations and passive treatments.
Fun fact, physical therapist learn things to look for in determining if X-rays or MRIs are necessary! This takes much less time, money, and can decrease a long process of being referred from place to place for and injury that ultimately just needs some time and exercise.
AND THEN! After the first 3-5 days, those tissues need some LOVE! Don’t neglect the love for your tissues by sitting around with ice on your ankle or heat on your back and delay the healing process! LOVE em!
Regeneration and Repair (the next 2 stages of soft tissue healing) go from 48 hours to 6 weeks post injury! During this process, your tissues are being repaired. Basically new tissue gets laid down during these phases but is randomly laid down and is new! So our job is to get things back to “normal” tissue for the area by:
Load: Start to get back to normal movement! Load slowly and with intention.
This would be the phase where working with a physical therapist is ideal. This can be a tough process to begin on your own as it’s hard to determine what is too much or not enough (that’s where we come in). You want to rebuild, re-strengthen, and relearn movements safely and effectively to get the best outcome!
Optimism: train your brain and body for optimal recovery by being positive and confident in they body’s ability to come back!
Injury is frustrating and can lead to a lot of mental road blocks. It can lead to fear avoidance, where you avoid movements out of fear of re-injury. It can lead to trusting your workouts, your coaches, and most importantly, your body less! It can lead to mis-use or compensation. All of these things are because injury causes our brain to jump into protection mode - these are all defense mechanisms. One of the biggest parts of your recovery is optimism and confidence that you can get back to where you were before, stronger and more confident than before.
Vascularisation: for all my heavy lifters, you’re not gonna love this one but CARDIO!
Get your blood pumping to get things moving into and out of that injured area. Pain free, low impact cardio can be huge in the healing process. It not only helps the blood flow, but it allows you to workout while you’re still healing if you’re injury is preventing your normal exercise program!
Exercise: I just feel like you knew this was coming because us physical therapists can’t stop talking about exercise and when science backs it up, we shout it from the roof tops!
Exercise. Get the new tissues stronger, more controlled, and improve mobility. Improve proprioception and body awareness. Again, this is where you physical therapist comes in: we help educate and teach you movements that will not only help you heal but will help you feel like you’re able to return to your normal movements and activities stronger and more confident than ever.
Injuries can be scary, hard to navigate, and feel defeating. But they don’t need to be! What is so exciting about PEACE & LOVE is that it is SO much more empowering and progressive toward movement and returning to your activities. On top of all that good news, Rebuilt Movement & Rehab is also here to help! Whether you need tele-health or in person therapy, Rebuilt wants to help you get back to your highest level - confidently and as quickly as possible. If you have an acute injury or a pain flare up, email/call/DM or just go right to our scheduling page to book you appointment and take the next steps toward rebuilding to the level you want to be at.
