Why does ice reduce swelling?
In: Other
Just to add to this very slightly
During the process of healing, your body will also produce heat due to increased cell metabolism in the injured area – that’s why, for example, a sprained ankle may feel slightly warm to the touch.
This heat can then have a knock on effect on said cell metabolism and make it slightly disordered and less effective. This can then increase scarring, and lengthen recovery times
By icing an injured area, especially in the early stages, you can displace a lot of the heat away from an injury. This has the effect of slowing cell metabolism and allowing it to be much more ordered, and therefore more effective at healing in an effective manner. This can reduce scarring and reduce recovery times.
This is also why we would place head injury / major trauma patients into a hypothermic state in many instances. Cool the brain down, slow metabolism which preserves the tissue rather than allowing swelling and disordered repair.
This is a slightly simplistic way of looking at it all, but is another reason why we ice swollen area.
Edit: as u/epote has pointed out the leap to brain cooling in trauma is probably one that shouldn’t have been made here. Apologies for the somewhat misleading info. Left for context but consider this edit a redaction of that statement!
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