Should You Use Ice or Heat for Pain? (Infographic)
What's best for your aches and pains?
It’s hard to get through life without straining a muscle, spraining a ligament, suffering a headache or wrenching your back. And the longer you’re on the planet, the more susceptible you are to arthritis. When something hurts, will ice or heat make it feel better? Here’s what our experts advise:
- Sports injuries: “Ice seems cold, mean and uncomfortable. Heat seems warm, comfy and cozy,” says sports and exercise medicine physician Anne Rex, DO. “But ice wins for acute pain, inflammation and swelling. Heat perpetuates the cycle of inflammation and can be harmful.”
Adds Sports Health physical therapist Carol Ferkovic Mack, DPT, SCS, CSCS: “Moist heat helps to loosen injured muscles before activity or stretching. Icing afterward can minimize pain.”
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Headaches: “Cold masks or wraps over the forehead, eyes and temples help the throbbing pain of a migraine,” says neurologist Jennifer Kriegler, MD. Ice is preferred, but heat wraps can halt neck spasms that contribute to headache.
- Arthritis: Heat wins for arthritis and injuries that linger more than six weeks. “Patients with more chronic osteoarthritis usually feel better with heat,” says rheumatologist Linda Mileti, MD. But for acute gout flares, she favors ice.
In this infographic, our experts explain when to use ice, when to use heat and why:
*** 糾正一錯誤 *** : 圖表裏的sprains和strain弄反了.
扭傷肌肉和肌腱(muscles and tendons),叫strains.
扭傷韌帶(ligaments),叫sprains.
來源: http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2014/08/should-you-use-ice-or-heat-for-pain-infographic/
扭傷肌肉和肌腱,叫strain.
扭傷韌帶叫sprain
A sprain is a stretching or tearing of ligaments — the tough bands of fibrous tissue that connect one bone to another in your joints. The most common location for a sprain is in your ankle.
A strain is a stretching or tearing of muscle or tendon. A tendon is a fibrous cord of tissue that connects muscles to bones. Strains often occur in the lower back and in the hamstring muscle in the back of your thigh.
