Whether you engage in recreational, adventure, extreme or competitive sports, you might have gone through some kind of injury in the past. Initial treatment of any type of injury plays an important role in how the injury will recover later. Effective treatments for sport injury will help the athlete recover faster and smoothly. If the sport injury is not handled properly, you might land up spending more time to recover and need to stay away from sport activities.
Well R.I.C.E method is the best method that works as initial treatment for basic sports related injury. Well, R.I.C.E is explained as below.
Rest
The very first thing that you need to do as part of injury treatment is to locate the exact spot of the injury and let it rest. Resting helps any type of injuries to settle and you can get a fair idea about how serious the injury is.
Ice
Also icing the spot which is injured helps decrease swelling, which normally occurs when you are injured. Ice helps stem excess flow of blood to your injured area, which is not needed during initial stages of treatment. It also reduces and numbs the pain from your injury.
You can use ice for ten to twenty minutes after every one hour and continue the process for at least 3 hours. Repeat the process at least thrice a day and continue doing it for 2-3 days.
Compress
When you are not using ice while going to bed, it is better to compress your injured spot with the help of bandage. This helps reduce swelling and water retention disappears that otherwise would accumulate at the spot which is injured.
Elevate
Finally, if you elevate your injured spot above your heart promotes better blood circulation around the spot which is injured. During night prior going to bed elevating injured spot can be helpful.
Apart from above steps, complete rest and proper diet is essential too. Most of the treatments related to sport injury provide help for muscle aches, sprains, muscle strain and muscle cramps.
Avoid applying heat to chronic injuries as they lead to increase in flow of blood and also avoid application of ice to acute injuries.
You can use cold therapy for 3 days in case of a fresh injury and if it doesn’t work, you need to consult the doctor. You can apply ice many times in a day, but do not apply for a period of more than 15 minutes. You should maintain regular time intervals between the applications of ice packs. Also avoid bringing the ice in direct contact with your skin, so use ice packs only.
Heat therapy helps in many ways like it helps reducing stiffness, provides relief from pain, reduces muscle tightening, increases the flow of blood, provides flexibility to the issues around the injury.
A very effective therapy is not losing hope as it is an injury and it will recover, if the sport injury is bit serious, it will take some time but healing will take place.