so what we'd like to do now is talk
about the use of cold and treating
injuries the cold packs are used
frequently been used forever in the
treatment of sports medicine injuries
basically what a cold pack does is it
helps alleviate pain and help decrease
inflammation and joints where we use a
cold pack on very frequently a shoulder
joint knee and ankle so let's just look
at the application of a cold pack to the
shoulder
it's always good to put the cold pack
behind the shoulder and in front of the
shoulder so you kind of cover the the
whole area you rotator cuff muscles are
in the front and in the back of the
shoulder and the subacromial bursa is on
top so I think probably cold packs work
best in the shoulder joint people that
have trouble sleeping at night will
respond very well to cold packs at night
before you go to bed that's one of the
best things you can do to alleviate pain
in your shoulder team almost as good as
pain medicine so cold packs in the
shoulder are very very effective
typically ice application is 20 to 25
minutes and you don't want to reapply
the cold you need a couple of hours in
between and here's the reason you don't
want to reapply so this is one scenario
that sometimes happens in a football
injury is they'll put an ice pack behind
the knee little chilly and on top of the
knee okay so if you if you have ice
application on a knee and you keep ice
on there for four or five six hours at a
time with fresh ice sometimes you can
actually damage the peroneal nerve the
peroneal nerve is a very important nerve
that comes very close to the surface
I actually innervate the muscles that
bring your foot up and down you can call
a peroneal nerve palsy which is a very
bad thing so ice is very effective we
also use ice in the ankle along with
compression and when you're doing ice
application elevation is really
important if you can elevate your knee
or ankle you'll have good success with
ice compression and elevation