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No More Ice???

Gary Riedel helped to invent the term RICE - Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.

He now encourages us to think differently about how we're handling waste/congestion from injury. Ice essentially traps waste in and around the damaged site and it prevents the natural flow of oxygen supplies and it causes additional damage.

In reality there is little to no research that actually supports the use of ice for injuries. Icing numbs pain, but it does nothing beneficial for the actual injury. 

The real problem is that cells are going to die/suffocate from the congestion - so we need to decongest the area to prevent tissue loss before we can worry about pain mitigation. The answer to the problem is to use the lymphatic system - in practice this is the garbage management system which can pump out the inflammation away from the injured site. 

The new acronym becomes MCE - Movement, Compression, and Elevation.

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