You know the feeling. A new or nagging injury to the spine causes back pain and inflammation that can stop you in your tracks. Many people reach for the heating pad, not realizing that may be exactly the wrong answer. Reach for your ice pack instead!
Bodyline’s founder, Dr. John W. Fiore, DC, was a strong advocate for the use of ice — medically known as cryotherapy — for the treatment of spinal pain. Inflammation has four signs: pain, redness, swelling and heat. They always appear together with the same intensity as the severity of the pain. The more extreme the pain becomes, the more redness, heat, and swelling will develop, commensurate with the level of the pain. The good news, Dr. John believed, is that if you remove one of these signs, the other three will be removed as well.
Ice therapy can remove the heat of an injury in a safe, effective, convenient and low-cost way. The deeper the pain, the longer the ice must be applied to the injured area. Often, ice must be applied for hours!
The safest form of ice therapy uses an 11″ ice bag filled with ice and a little water to start the melting process. This type of cold pack with have a temperature of 34-40 degrees Fahrenheit (F.). It will not cause frostbite even if it applied 24 hours a day! That’s because frostbite can only occur when the skin temperature is brought down to 32 degrees or lower. For long-term ice therapy, using an ice bag is recommended over ice packs made with gel because the gel packs can take the temperature of the skin much lower. Gel packs often contain chemicals whose freezing point can be as low as -10 degrees F.
The goal of ice therapy is to lower the injured body area to 32-40 degrees Fahrenheit for a prolonged period of time to reduce the swelling. It is this swelling that presses on the nerve endings that causes the pain. (There are some individuals for whom ice therapy may be inappropriate. You should always consult a medical professional to determine if this, or any other medical treatment, is right for you.)
What about topical cryotherapy sprays? If your injury is at the surface of your skin, such as an abrasion, first or second degree burns, insect bites and other mild trauma, cryotherapy sprays and ointments may be all you need to reduce the heat from the mild inflammation and help to promote healing in less than three hours.
However, most spinal pain conditions (e.g., sciatica, disc protrusions and herniations, bursitis, neuritis, tendonitis, etc.) are found one to six inches deep inside the body. They all need long-term cryotherapy to reduce the inflammation — generally, 4-24 hours a day, for one or several days to alleviate the pain. As a general rule, using ice bags with only ice and water takes about two hours to lower the body temperature about 10 degrees at two inches depth.
Contact our Bodyline team to learn more about ice therapy and the Bodyline Ice Therapy product line!