Hot compresses are familiar to us in a variety of ways and means. Ancient man was unknowingly using the radiant heat of fire to warm himself up by roasting next to a fire. When your stomach hurts, cover your abdomen with your hand, and the heat from your palm will make us feel more comfortable. Go out and play a day walk feel fatigue, play a tub of hot water bubble feet, is also a way to relieve fatigue through hot compresses. These are the life we do not consciously reuse the warmth to themselves for easy and simple physical therapy. Ice seems to be used in everyday life is not much, because in our minds, uncomfortable, there is a problem, should promote circulation should be warm, with ice is quite cold and uncomfortable, what are the benefits? People who often watch sports may see such scenes on the field, an athlete accidentally injured on the ground, the team doctor on the sidelines quickly run on the field, first check to see if the problem is serious, serious injuries will be rushed to carry off the field on a stretcher, light injuries will come up with something to the injury (of course, usually limb parts) spray, or take out a bag to cover the injury. In fact, this time is in the use of physical cooling way for emergency treatment. The spray-like things are certain cooling effect of chemical agents, contact with the body after evaporation from the liquid state into a gaseous state, sucking away the local heat so that the injured part of the rapid reduction in temperature. Now this method is used less, one is that this kind of spray can is high-pressure, there is a certain danger, when carrying to avoid high temperature and bump, the second is to continue to cool the time can not let people hold a can constantly spray ah. So now most of the use of ice packs to ice cooling. Ice bag is of course a bag filled with ice, with plastic bags and other temporary use can also be, there are special ice bags can be used repeatedly, generally a combination of plastic and nylon material, the surface is suede, not slippery and contact with the skin will be more comfortable, there is a cover, unscrew the ice and water filled and then screwed tightly can be a long time ice. In 5-6 years ago, there is no special production in the country, if you need to bring back from abroad, and now finally see the localization. Knowing that the emergency treatment on the sports field with the ice method, then why ice it? Hot compress to relax the blood is not more comfortable and faster? This is the misunderstanding of our daily life thinking. Hot compresses can certainly relax the tendons and blood, but just injured when the tissue is bleeding (the skin is not broken, the tissue is also bleeding from the rupture of capillaries, and sometimes the problem is more serious), this time if you then use a hot compress, blood circulation a promotion, out of the blood will be more, the damage will also be aggravated. Therefore, what is needed at this time is to inhibit the local blood circulation and make the bleeding stop as soon as possible, so there is also the principle of acute trauma emergency treatment, which is the so-called “RICE” principle. “R” is the first letter of “rest”, which means to rest and brake, that is, to stop the activity immediately, so as to avoid further damage to the tissues or to other parts when the activity is done. Like our usual sprained ankle often will be their own activities, think this is faster, in fact, if the injury is not serious, but okay, if the ligament tear rupture, or a fracture, this activity may have been added to the injury! Of course, not to let the good people to help and knead and pinch, otherwise it is likely not to help but add to the mess! “I” is the first letter of “ice”, the original meaning is of course ice, here derived from the ice and cooling. The simple truth has been said before and will not be repeated. “C” is the first letter of “compression”, referring to pressure, pressure bandaging. If the conditions at the time of injury allow, you can use elastic bandages on the injury local pressure bandage, not only can fix the local to avoid aggravation of the injury, while a certain pressure can also avoid excessive bleeding swelling, etc.. Of course, not the tighter the bandage the better, too tight will affect the circulation, causing ischemia of the limb, serious will make the limb because of ischemic necrosis! The strength of the bandage in the end is how much, what kind of tightness is moderate, it is not just talk to understand, so no special study, or a relatively loose bandage is good, the approximate degree of tightness is in the bandage can be easily stuffed into a finger. “E” is the first letter of “elevation”, which can be understood as elevation of the affected limb, that is, the injured limb is elevated, preferably above the position of the heart, which will facilitate the return of blood and lymphatic flow throughout the limb. Of course, if the injury is to the head or neck, don’t elevate the head! Because if it is a fracture of the cervical vertebrae, the spinal cord may be bruised when lifting the head, which may cause life-threatening! Of course, while we did the emergency treatment, or should contact the hospital as soon as possible, after all, this is only an emergency simple treatment, or need professionals to do further work. After saying the emergency treatment, we will go back to the ice and hot compress problem. When you have just been injured, you should apply ice immediately, and you should apply ice within 48-72 hours, because the acute bleeding period of trauma is 48-72 hours, and we can start to apply heat to promote circulation only after there is no new bleeding. Should we keep icing or icing as much as possible during the first two or three days of injury? Not really. We have all washed our hands or clothes with cold water and we all know that when our hands are first exposed to cold water, the color of the skin will freeze white, but after a while, it will be red again. This is most obvious in the body of winter swimming enthusiasts, after swimming for a while and then on the shore body are red. The reason for this is that, when the temperature just lowered, capillaries reactively contracted, the skin’s blood circulation dropped, so the color became pale, after a period of time, the tissue realized that they can not freeze themselves to death, so they will reflexively expand the blood vessels to increase the local tissue blood flow, so we can see with the naked eye is frozen red. Now it is also clear that if the ice is applied for too long, it instead promotes circulation again, which of course we do not want to happen in the early stages of the injury. So the ideal ice application is: about 15-20 minutes per ice application, with 1-2 hours between each ice application. After the pain is not too pronounced, icing every 2-3 hours is fine. If the injury is very mild and small, the time and frequency of icing can be less. When icing, there are some seemingly insignificant details that should also be noted. For example, as mentioned earlier to put ice and water into the ice bag, since it is to cool down as soon as possible, the cooler it is, the faster it can cool down? Add ice is, add water why? In secondary school physics mentioned, ice and water mixture is 0 °, in other words, the lowest ice and water mixture is 0 °. But ice is different, ice just out of the refrigerator is the refrigerator freezer temperature, may be minus 5 ° may be minus 15 °. Such a low temperature will frostbite tissue, only with the right amount of water to become a mixture of ice and water to make the temperature moderate. At the same time, the ice is solid, angular, and the limb contact surface is not uniform, the place next to too cold, not next to the place and no ice to, so you need to add water to make the whole ice bag into a soft water bladder, in order to soft and uniform contact to the place where the ice needs to be applied. What can be used when there is no special ice pack? There are many things that can be used locally. For example, buy a bottle of cold drinks, poured in a plastic bag as an ice pack; no suitable plastic bag can be poured directly on top of towels and handkerchiefs and the like, moistened and cooled directly after the ice pack; when playing in the wilderness can be directly soaked with water from the creek and river, it should be noted that if the water is too turbulent can not be directly hands ah feet ah deep into the water, because the impact of the water on the tissue is also a stimulus. Or buy a popsicle wrapped in a towel and use the same, in short, the need is something low temperature, as to what is not important. And in the ice, to see if the skin is broken, if the skin has a wound, must first be padded with a clean impermeable and can not be insulated insulation, or the water condensed on the ice pack into the wound may cause infection. With so many words, finally the ice related knowledge is briefly introduced. Next it is time to talk about hot compresses. According to the above, the first two or three days of acute injury is to ice. Then if the injury is not serious, no special treatment, two or three days later you can start the hot compress. Ice suppresses the bleeding and inflammation, but the bleeding and inflammation already there should rely on hot compresses to promote the circulation of blood and lymph in the tissues, to take away the inflammatory substances and bruises, in order to get better faster. Hot compresses are relatively simple, because we have more or less experience with hot compresses. Directly with hot water soak ah, with hot water bags ah and so on can be. For hot compresses, the important thing is the temperature and time control, usually the temperature of hot compresses do not exceed 50-60 °. The temperature is too high will burn everyone knows, but there is a professional term called “low temperature burns” may be many people have not heard of it. In fact, this is the time too long caused by the hot compress. High temperature things we touch feel hot, will no longer contact, but forty to fifty degrees of temperature not only do not feel hot, but also absolutely comfortable, it may be a compress for several hours, and even hold the hot water bag to fall asleep. So the heat gradually accumulates in the tissue, and slowly conduct to the depths of the tissue, resulting in a more serious degree of injury low-temperature burns! So how to feel comfortable when the hot compress, but do not exceed an hour! This can be both effective and safe! To organize what has been said above: when the injury has just occurred, to follow the “RICE” principle. For 2-3 days, apply ice packs for 15-20 minutes at a time, once every 1-3 hours. After the acute period is over, you can start applying hot compresses to promote circulation, at a temperature of 50-60°, for between half an hour and one hour.