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DISC INJURY: Ice -vs- Heat

5/23/2013

1 Comment

 
Mountain View, Missouri (West Plains / Willow Springs / Winona / Cabool / Summersville) ---- Spinal Decompression Doctor, Russell Schierling, presents another blog article on Spinal Decompression Therapy.
ICE -vs- HEAT

It's All About the Blood Vessels

Ice Heat
Remember when you ruptured your disc?  You were bending over trying to get your boat hooked up to your hitch when BAM --- you felt a stabbing pain in your low back that took you to your knees.  In the months since that time, you have had a set of X-rays, a CT Scan, and an MRI of your lumbosacral area.  Your doctor told you that you have a DISC BULGE at the L5 disc, and that it is pinching a nerve.  This is not news to you because you can feel the constant dull ache in your leg.  That is, until you move wrong and it runs through your leg like an electric shock of pure pain that the doctor called SCIATICA. 

The doctor wrote you prescriptions for four different medications and then told you to use a heating pad several times a day.  You are not doing well at all, and want to know if you are doing things the right way.  Of course the medications are not helping you get better.  They are masking the symptom so that you can live with it while it is supposedly healing.  Unfortunately they are not doing a very good job of doing even that.  But the medications are another topic for another day.   What I want to discuss with you right now is the difference between using ice and heat, and when one is better than the other.
Ice Therapy




OR
Therapy Heat


IF I HURT MY BACK DO I USE ICE OR HEAT?

Allow me to take you through the progression of a back injury.  When you bent over to jockey with the ball hitch on your truck (you are hitching up your boat), you felt something give in your back.  Some soft tissues (like muscles) have a rich blood supply. Some, like TENDONS or LIGAMENTS have a very poor blood supply.   Arterial blood comes from the heart / lungs loaded with oxygen.  The oxygen is transported out of the blood vessel and into the body's tissues at the capillary level.  Capillaries are so small that only one red blood cell at a time can pass through without creating a traffic jam.  Because they are so small and fragile, when you injure tissue, you actually injure (tear) the capillaries that supply blood and oxygen to said tissue.

This causes leaking of fluid into the tissue itself (swelling).  The group of Immune System chemicals (INFLAMMATION) that are released due to this tissue injury, attract fluid (swelling) to the area.  It is important to remember that swelling and inflammation, while intimately related to each other, are not synonymous terms.  Although Inflammation is necessary for the healing process to take place, too much of it is bad news as far as pain is concerned.  This is why you need to use ice --- even if it does not immediately help with your pain.

Ice is a vasoconstrictor ---- it closes down the smallest blood vessels in the torn tissue so that less fluid and chemicals leak out.  The result is less swelling and Inflammation --- and hopefully less pain.  If you are going to use heat for your back, I almost always recommend a "global" heat.  In other words, don't put the heat pack on your low back because that will attract fluid (swelling) to that area.  Instead, get in a bath, shower, jacuzzi, etc.  The larger the area you heat, the less chance of swelling a local area.


1 Comment

    DR. SCHIERLING

    Dr. Russell Schierling
    Dr. Schierling has been practicing in Mountain View for over 20 years.  He decided on a career in chiropractic after doctors were unable to help him following a college weightlifting injury
    Spinal Decompression Chronic Pain


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