Cold Therapy for Burns, Trauma, and Other Painful Conditions

Many conditions can manifest with pain: acute injury, inflammation, burns, trauma, and muscle spasms, to name a few. These conditions can benefit tremendously from cold therapy in terms of natural pain relief and other mechanisms.

Although it is common knowledge that cold therapy provides pain relief, not everyone knows what painful conditions have been proven to benefit from it.

What conditions can benefit from cold therapy?

Pain reduction and relief is achieved after cold therapy in many scenarios. The more common indications for local cold therapy are enumerated below:

• Trauma. Cold therapy reduces edema after trauma. Apply local cold therapy at 8ºC. Do this for 30 minutes to help decrease the swelling.
• Burns. Although an involved area of your body has been successfully removed from the cause of the burn, there is still ongoing burn damage at a microscopic level. To stop extension of burn injuries after the event, provide local cold therapy. Apply cold immediately after superficial burns to reduce edema, pain, redness, and blistering. It is best to use cold therapy before any of these burn complications have occurred.
• Spastic muscles. Cold therapy inhibits muscle spasticity. To do this, provide cold therapy for at least ten minutes. If you have thick fat tissues, you may need to apply cold packs for a longer amount of time (60 minutes).
• Acute inflammation. Insect bites, minor trauma, and many other conditions that produce acute inflammation will benefit greatly from cold therapy.
• Pain. Cold therapy effectively numbs tissues, providing natural pain relief.
• Before limb amputation. If you are to undergo limb amputation (for diabetic foot, major trauma, cancer, etc), cold therapy reduces metabolic processes and helps reduce blood loss during the amputation surgery.
• Neurogenic weakness. Weakness brought about by nerve disease may benefit from cold therapy. The cold temperature produces muscle contractions, strengthening muscles in the process and “re-educating” the muscles.
• Knee flexion restriction after leg fractures. Cold therapy has been proven to be more effective than heat therapy combined with traction and stretching.

Although pain relief is an important goal in these conditions, the other benefits of cold therapy, such as reduced swelling and hemorrhage, are also vital. The use of cold therapy helps people overcome pain and enjoy a better quality of life.

Did you know that a hot compress might be better for other conditions? Learn about heat therapy.

Any violent reactions? Leave a comment!

Sources:

1. Lin YH. Effects of thermal therapy in improving the passive range of knee motion: comparison of cold and superficial heat applications. Clin Rehabil. Sep 2003;17(6):618-23. [Medline].

2. Oosterveld FG, Rasker JJ. Effects of local heat and cold treatment on surface and articular temperature of arthritic knees. Arthritis Rheum. Nov 1994;37(11):1578-82. [Medline].