R.I.C.E. ~ You Want Me to Do What With That?

Hardly a day goes by in my practice that we are not recommending RICE for an injury. Okay, maybe not the sticky grainy stuff, it is actually a mnemonic for a treatment protocol for injuries. If you or someone you know has an injury it is important to act quickly to help the body to restore normal function as quickly as possible.

When an injury occurs there are specific stages of healing that must take place. You cannot supersede these to get faster results, so our best offense is to enhance the healing stages. Lets look at what R.I.C.E. stands for.

1. R = Rest it
2. I  = Ice it
3. C = Compress it
4. E = Elevate it

There you have the recipe for treating any injury, of the joints, mainly.  We will look at this in a bit more detail below.