RICE is DEAD, It's Time for PEACE & LOVE

Soft tissue injuries happen, even when we don’t want to. Let’s face it most of them happen at the most inopportune moments too. When soft tissue injuries occur we use to consistently use the rule of RICE

• Rest

• Ice

• Compress

• Elevate

RICE is now dead. Why? Our knowledge has now changed on how tissues heal and what they need. We now know that tissues require a more dynamic method of healing, cue, PEACE & LOVE

• Protect

• Elevate

• Avoid Anti-Inflammatories & Ice

• Compression

• Education

&

• Load

• Optimism

• Vascularization

• Exercise

PEACE

Your initial 1-3 days after an injury the goal is to Protect the tissue. We want to allow the body to bring in its natural healing factors. Elevation will allow for the edema to naturally decrease through returning additional fluid to the lymphatic system to be processed out of the body. While avoiding anti-inflammatories and ice we are allowing the body to utilize its natural source of inflammation to heal an area. Current research suggests that in certain cases utilization of anti-inflammatories and ice after a certain amount of time can actually negate proper wound healing and cause the presence of injury to last longer. Compression will also help us to reduce the amount of edema that is in the injured area. Lastly, Education. It is important that we understand what is going on with out bodies.

LOVE

Now the fun begins, however, this is an area where we tread in the gray. When loading a tissue that is injured there is a happy place that you want to make sure that you are living in. Know your pain and what that means. The stop light system that we utilize helps you to be able to  better navigate your pain and knowing when to stop, utilize caution or keep on going. 

Your mindset plays a huge role in your recovery and your choice of choosing positivity or negativity can be a game changer. Maintaining a positive yet optimistic view is HUGE! 

In order to optimize healing tissue need vascularization or more blood flow. We can increased the blood flow to an area by simply moving our bodies.  Exercise, helps us to promote vascularization to the tissues.

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Each injury is different and there will be various guidance that is recommended based on the injury that has been sustained. For a more detailed description it is important to seek out medical attention/guidance in the presence of injury.

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Resources

1. Dubois B, Esculier J

   Soft-tissue injuries simply need PEACE and LOVE

   British Journal of Sports Medicine 2020;54:72-73.