Your knee is one of the easiest parts of your body to injure, which is shown by the estimated 19.4 million visits to physicians offices due to injuries and problems in the United States each year, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. When it comes to prescribed treatments for knee injuries, one home treatment that is often used is hot therapy or cold therapy with ice.
Reasons for Hot/Cold Therapy
Hot and cold therapy is used for two main purposes, reduction of inflammation and pain relief. Common knee injuries like ACL, PCL and MCL injuries to the ligaments, pulled muscles and torn cartilage all involve pain and inflammation. These effects can limit your range of motion and make simple tasks like walking or even sitting painful. Hot and cold therapy is used to reduce these effects to allow your knee to heal faster and keep you comfortable.
Ice Benefits
Ice therapy is used first in hot and cold therapy. In this therapy, an ice pack is placed on the knee to reduce the temperature of the knee tissues. This has two main effects. First, the cold causes your body to constrict the blood vessels in your knee, reducing blood flow to the area. When you remove the ice after 10 to 15 minutes, the tissue heats back up, causing the blood vessels to dilate and blood to rush into the knee. As the new blood rushes in, it flushes out chemicals involved in the inflammatory process. The second effect ice has is that it dulls the nerve impulses in your knee responsible for communicating pain, which helps reduce the pain of your knee injury.
Heat Benefits
Heat therapy is reserved for after inflammation has gone down, and can be administered either through dry heat, like a heating pad, or through moist heat, like a warm bath. Heat dilates the blood vessels in the knees, which increases the circulation to the injured tissues. Muscles often tighten up after a knee injury, decreasing even further your range of motion. Heat helps relax the muscle tissue, helping reduce the tight feeling and increase your mobility.
Caution
Heat should never be placed on a new injury. When you apply heat in the first few days after an injury, you encourage the flow of blood to the area, which can work against you trying to reduce inflammation. Instead, cold therapy should be used until the inflammation has subsided. Heat therapy can then be used to help reduce pain and increase range of motion until the area has healed. Talk to your doctor if you are unsure when it's safe to transition to heat therapy.
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