I twisted my foot. Why do you need ice sometimes and heat sometimes?

When we sprain our ankle, we usually choose to apply a towel to the sprain to reduce the swelling. Here, we will help you analyze whether the ankle sprain is ice or hot compress first.

1, ice compress

Ice compress is to cover our ankles with a cold towel or ice cubes, so that our ankles can get effective sedative and analgesic effects, which can help us relieve the pain caused by ankle sprains to a great extent. Especially in summer, the weather is very hot. Once our ankle is swollen after spraining, it is easy to feel burning. At this time, if we can effectively cool our ankles with ice cubes, the burning sensation will be greatly reduced, and even the swelling can be completely reduced.

2. Hot compress method

Hot compress mainly dissolves the congestion at our ankles through the water vapor contained in the hot air. Through hot compress, the congestion at the ankle can be effectively and quickly eliminated, thus promoting blood circulation and removing blood stasis. This can promote blood circulation at our ankles, ensure normal blood circulation at ankles, and avoid muscle atrophy or necrosis at ankles caused by poor blood circulation caused by sprained ankles. But be careful not to use overheated towels when hot compress, otherwise it may burn your skin.

3. How to use it

When we sprain our ankle, we must use cold compress first, because when we sprain our ankle, the first thing we should do is to calm down and reduce the swelling. By cold compress, we can reduce the temperature at our ankles and prevent the swollen ankles from swelling further. But the cold compress method is only suitable for the first 24 hours of ankle sprain. Once it exceeds 24 hours, we will take the method of hot compress. Because there may be congestion at the ankle at this time, it is necessary to melt the congestion first.