Dr. Leering’s Hot Fudge Sundae Approach to Pain and Icing

Ice for neck and back pain management is best.

Every week people will present to my office with low back or neck pain that’s been simmering for a week or so. They have tried to self-manage by rest, stretching, light activity, activity modification, use of pain medication, and lastly heating rather than icing. What happens in the cases of people using heating is that there is no change in the intensity of symptoms and often times, feel worse. They’ve been told in the past by different health care providers or well-meaning people close to them to heat their pain.

In almost all cases, when patients switch to icing and refrain from heating the intensity of their pain comes down. (And having some chiropractic treatment assists this as well). But most people are gobsmacked on how much better they feel with icing.

Let me address why I think icing for pain is better in most cases:

Inflammation is the underlying reason of why you have pain with spinal dysfunction. Inflammation is a biochemical process that is not proportionate or modulated, but usually a run away process. If you think back to your high school chemistry, to make a chemical reaction happen, adding heat to the equation will send it. Again, it’s run away and disproportionate. So, by setting yourself to cook up the brew of inflammation with regularity you are fueling the chemistry that is fundamentally adding to your pain.

Hot Fudge Sunday Approach to Icing (How to Stay Warm While Using Ice)

For those that loath ice, particularly during the colder winter months, I suggest simply making yourself a hot fudge sundae: hug or wrap yourself in the heat but ice the area in question.

By the same token, an anti-inflammatory can assist in modulating the inflammation associated with pain.

Obviously, there are the usual caveats of only doing temperature therapy or any use of medication must be individualized based on your specific health circumstances.

Let me finish with an analogy that I often use to make my point.  If you pinched your fingertip in a cupboard or drawer or worse tapped it with a hammer inadvertently, your fingertip blows up red, swollen, and in pain. Your instinct might be to run to the sink and run your hand under water to soothe it. Can you imagine putting that red/ throbby digit under a hot tap? I’ll wager you physically wouldn’t be able to do it. You’d default to cold water? If you think of it, you’ve started off inflammation in a very localized and intense way by the trauma to your fingertip. Managing it with a cold faucet would be your natural intervention. Same holds true for spinal pain.

Patients will often have a very common retort “but for the spasms heat is good!” So, I point out that ice is the best antidote to both spasm and inflammation. Heat is in most cases aggravating and why they haven’t felt better over the few days of self-managing.

Note I’m saying use ice for PAIN – not stiffness, achiness, but pain.

For pain, use ice. You’re safest with ice every time.

Then, let me take care of the underlying spinal dysfunction with chiropractic treatment in our North Vancouver boutique clinic. You’ll be on your way to recovery as fast as possible.