Treating Swelling: Tips and Tricks
Treating swelling is essential in recovering from your sports
Swelling is a major problem, causing pain, loss of motion, loss of
strength, and function. It plays a major role in the healing process,
and slows down recovery considerably.
are a few tricks that can get you ahead of the game when it comes to
limiting swelling and effectively treating it.
What is Swelling?
Simply put, swelling is the accumulation of fluid in the body. It can
be enclosed within a joint (effusion) or outside of a joint (edema). It
is the body's way of preparing the injured area for healing, but
becomes a big problem when treating sports injuries.
Learn more about swelling
The Sooner the Better
Swelling after an acute injury occurs very quickly, usually within the
first 10-20 minutes. This is true with injuries like ankle
sprains, fractures, and ligament tears. So, the sooner you start
treating swelling, the better you are in the long run.
compression and ice, two of the RICe principles
will help to limit swelling initially. You cannot completely stop it,
nor do you want to. But keep the body from producing too much, and you
are on your way to a faster recovery.
Compression and Ice
essential to control swelling. It is more important than ice, so if you
have to choose one, choose compression. However, if you can provide
both at the same time, that is even better.
A cold compression wrap, like you see at the right
is a great way to provide both compression and ice at the same time.
These wraps are available for many different body parts, and are very
effective in treating swelling.
Chronic injuries can sometimes cause swelling. This is true with patella femoral syndrome,
and following surgeries. Non-acute swelling is usally dependent upon
how much time you spend using the body part - for instance, being up on
your feet a lot.
Swelling like this is usually due
to an increased
stress on the joint. The best treatment for this type of swelling is
again, ice and compression. Luckily, non-acute swelling doesn't last as
long, and will often subside in a day or two.
Treating swelling is as simple as ice and compression regularly. It
makes a huge difference in the length of your recovery time, and will
significantly decrease your pain and improve your range of motion...and
that will get you off the sidelines faster.
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