Often I get asked “What’s the best thing to do when I get hurt: Do I ice? Do I heat? Keep it still? Move it around?”

Well I’m going to go over a few common injuries that almost all of us have had at one time and what to do when they happen.

If you’ve ever played a sport and hurt yourself, you’ve heard of “R.I.C.E” Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.  This is the standard protocol that has been passed down from generation to generation.  RICE works but in some cases, your recovery can be greatly elongated by following this methodology. 

Let’s break down RICE.  “R” Rest:  “I strained my back”  “I pulled my hamstring” “ I sprained my ankle.”  If you went to the regular medical doctor with any of these injuries the first recommendation would be to let it “rest”.  Let the body heal it self by not re-aggravating the area.  Stay in bed, keep the area still and you’ll be fine.  Now this is where I have a slightly different view on the subject. Depending on the injury, always consult your medical professional first before dealing with an injury. 

My problem with resting an injury has to do with how blood flows through the body.  We all know that the heart pumps blood with every beat throughout the organs and muscles of the body every second of every day.  But did you know that the heart is not the only mechanism helping the body circulate blood through the body?  Your muscles play a huge roll in circulation.  Let’s take your legs for example: The heart pumps blood all the way down your legs, along with a little help from gravity, but to get blood back up the legs, would take quite a bit of additional pressure and strain on the heart.  Remember it’s now going against gravity, if you are standing up.  This is where the muscles come into play.  With every contraction of the muscles, in the legs, blood is squeezed back up to the heart.  The veins have special “V” shaped valves that open and close to help prevent blood from flowing backwards.  A little fun fact: When these valves break blood can flow backwards down the legs causing the veins to engorge, in turn causing what we call “varicose” or “spider” veins.

Now that we have established that muscles aid in the removal of blood from the extremities, how does this relate to the “R” in RICE? First I have to explain a little about the other letters.

If you sprain your ankle and it begins to swell, the first thing you think of is Ice and Elevation.  The “I”, and the “E”.  The ice causes vasoconstriction, or the narrowing of blood vessels.  This can slow down the rate of swelling to the area. If you had a muscle spasm where there is not enough blood going to an effected area, then you would use heat.  Heat causes vasodilatation or the opening of the blood vessels, increasing circulation to the area.   The “E” or elevation is to help work against gravity, to further slow down the process.  Lastly the “C” or compression, limits the amount of swelling by creating a barrier confining the excess blood from entering the effected area. Compression also gives additional support to the weakened ankle.

 

Now back to the “R”.  When I was at USC, working in the athletic training department, I saw more strains and sprains from athletes, than I could count.  My superiors always told me to use the “RICE “method to treat injuries on-site.  This is where I found myself to be a tad rebellious.  I was always told to immobilize the area.  My knowledge of how blood moves through the body and how muscles act as a pump to move blood from the extremities, caused me to realize that this treatment wouldn’t work.  Knowing there were no broken bones, why would I stop the only thing that would move old blood out of the affected area and fresh new healing blood into the area? So the first thing I would do with a sprained ankle is check to see if it was broken, elevate it and then start moving the foot and ankle.  What this did was create a pump, flushing out the old stagnant blood bringing new nourishing blood to help prevent scar tissues from forming and accelerate healing.  What I found, if I followed this theory, was that mobility increased, pain decreased and the total time of recovery was cut almost in half.  The movement wasn’t extreme, but was enough to retain range of motion and mobility.

I’ve found this to be true with almost all injuries.  Your body starts to atrophy within 36 hours of not moving.  Muscles begin to wither and range of motion becomes limited.  If you are able to keep movement to an area that is injured the body can keep nourishing blood flowing to that area decreasing the time it takes to heal.

So what I’m trying say is lying in bed waiting for the pain to go away is a bad idea.  MOVE! It doesn’t have to be huge movement but you have to move, get back on the horse, test your range and you will cut your recovery time in half.

I gave the example of the ankle sprain; the process can apply to almost any injury.

Strain your hamstring? Stretch, pump it, keep it moving or it will become ridged. 


If you pull your lower back and can barely move.  Try bringing your knees to your chest and do small circles holding them with your arms. Or slowly, with your knees bent, lying on your back, bring one knee up at a time 6 inches of the ground, alternating each leg.

Did you hurt your shoulders? Try pot stirrers: Bend over with your arm straight and relaxed and make a circle motions.  Try wall climbs: use your fingers to help you walk your hand up the wall with your arm straight.  Try different angles; front, side….

Sprained ankle: Try writing the alphabet with your foot….A B C….

Regardless what the injury, the quicker you can regain mobility the quicker you are on your way to a full recovery.

For more information on treatment of injuries or if you have specific individual questions, please respond to this blog and I will do my best to answer.  Or you can always email me at holden@metatouch.com.

  

Where does the pain come from?

The majority of people that walk into the MetaTouch clinic come because they have some type of pain.  The most common are sciatica, shoulder pain, low back pain and neck pain.  At the beginning of each treatment, I like to get a history and find out what brings them to me along with what there goals are for the treatment.  The most common comment I get from clients is, “I didn’t do anything, and then the pain just came out of no where.”  This perception that pain, “comes from no where,” I believe to be a very common misunderstanding within the medical profession and everyday people.

The body is an amazing machine filled with thousands of interconnected units that function together in perfect harmony.  When we injure ourselves, either by spraining our ankle, being tossed around in a car accident, or sitting funny on the couch for too long, we disrupt that harmony.  This disruption can lead to immediate pain, for instance, from an impact where a bone is broken, let’s say one’s ankle.  In this case the pain is clear in its cause and location.  The treatment is clear as well:  immobilize the area until the bone has re-fused and then strengthen the ankle back to its original state.  Now here is where pain can become a little more confusing.   For six weeks or so you either walked in a boot with crutches or limped around.  All this time your body was trying to adjust to its harmony being disrupted.  Remember, not only have you hurt your ankle but now all your weight has to be shifted to the opposite foot to keep your pain down and prevent you from re-injuring the damaged ankle.  Your hips shift to compensate for the new load, your shoulders roll forward to accommodate the crutches you’ve been walking with, and your head pushes forward to keep balance because your butt is sticking out everytime you walk, so that you won’t tip over.  All this happens without you being aware of any change. 

The body has an amazing ability to compensate for different changes in its machine. The problem is that the body can only compensate for a finite number of things until it goes into complete failure.  When that happens, we feel pain.   Think of it like one of those new all-wheel drive cars.  They advertise that when one wheel loses traction, power is transferred to the other wheels that aren’t slipping to help stabilize the car.  Now imagine that all the wheels fell off the car.  No amount of traction control will help you keep that car on the road.  The all-wheel drive can only compensate for a certain number of factors.  When it hits that point, it ceases to work.  The body operates the same way.

Think of the broken ankle:  Six weeks have gone by; the crutches are gone.  You are walking normally again.  Three weeks after that, you turn your neck to hear something your friend said, and bam! Like a lighting bolt, pain shoots through your shoulder and neck.  “It just happened!”  No, it didn’t.  Over the last nine weeks, your body has been trying to compensate for all the changes it had to accommodate due to the ankle break.  When you turned your head, it was as if the wheels fell off the car.  You hit that finite number; your neck had been weakened so greatly over the last nine weeks of balancing using small muscles to do the job of big ones, contracting some and fatiguing others.  Your neck gave up; it was tired! 

Now here comes the difference between MetaTouch treatments and the rest of the medical community.  Most doctors will treat the neck: injections, physical therapy on the neck, spinal adjustments of the neck, and last resort, surgery on the neck, because that’s where the problem is……isn’t it?  Remember how all this started…. the ankle?  That break changed your gait (the way you walk) which changed the way your muscles sit in your legs and hips and then changed how your head sits on your shoulders.  If all you treat is the neck, then you are only treating one part of the problem: the symptom.  Without addressing the problem, the symptom will return every time.  At MetaTouch, we will treat the neck, but we will also address and strengthen the foot, muscles in the legs and hips, different torsions in the torso.  All of these treatments help to correct the abnormal gait and align the body so that the neck can heal in its proper position.

Our society is very reactionary and narrow in how it sees things; we only add security when attacked;  we only fix the hole in the bridge if someone dies falling though it; we only go to the doctor if something hurts or breaks.  All I’m saying is let's look at why things happen; what’s the bigger picture?  Let’s work on prevention.  If we check on things before everything goes wrong (prevention), imagine how much pain and suffering we could avoid. Preventing problems and remembering where injuries began can be the key to managing and eliminating pain.

If you think you have something going on with your body, no matter how small.  Let us take a look; our therapists might be able to help prevent you from having it turn into a much greater issue. 

Thank you for your time, I look forward to seeing you soon.

Holden Zalma

www.metatouch.com