Applying ice on the muscles is a well-accepted practice for pain and soreness. Typically, athletes apply ice pack on their muscles when they injure themselves or get hurt. Sometimes, athletes and sportspersons also take an ice bath after intense sporting sessions or athletic performances.
When you undergo intense training sessions or workouts that stretch your muscles for a long time, your muscles may get strained. This may result in muscle injury. It is also referred to as a muscle pull or muscle tear. However, it is not always linked to your muscles. Sometimes, the tendons attached to your muscles may also get strained due to undue or prolonged pressure. Such pulls or strains can also occur during strenuous daily activities or heavy lifting. On such occasions, icing your muscles immediately after you start feeling the pain can help in alleviating the pain. However, if you have a muscle tear, icing may not bring much relief to you. In that case, you should report to hospital emergency.
Broadly speaking, there are two types of muscle injuries–acute and chronic.
Acute injuries are those that occur suddenly. You may twist your ankle when you suddenly step in a hole. You may sprain your shoulder or groin muscle during a football game or other athletic activities. These are sudden injuries. You are likely to get a sudden and intense pain along with some swelling. Swelling is body’s natural reaction to injury. It is, in fact, the body’s defense mechanism to heal the injury. The best remedy for such acute injuries is icing your muscles. You need to put a pack of ice to the affected area. Apply ice until the pain subsides. However, if you apply it continuously, the muscles may also get numb. So the practical approach is to apply ice for 20 minutes. The ice pack should not directly touch your skin. This may result in skin injury. It may be put in a bag or something similar so that you only feel the cold without the ice directly touching the skin. However, icing your muscle is not a substitute for medical intervention. If the pain goes away completely and does not return, then you may not need medical intervention. However, if the pain persists, then you should go to a doctor to see if there is a major injury.
Chronic injuries are those that develop over a long time. An acute injury itself can become chronic if the pain does not go away within a few days. However, such injuries may also develop slowly and go unnoticed. One fine morning, it may develop into a pain. Although such pain can be alleviated to some extent by icing your muscles, you should visit a doctor to treat the underlying cause, if any.
