BY DR. ARNAN SISSON PT (November 17,2023)

Last week, a gentleman walked into the clinic, who was having some sharp pain in his thigh after playing soccer with his grandkid. His pain was preventing him from getting around as well as he liked and he was asking me what he could do to solve the problem. I told him to use the RICE method.

Firstly, a pulled muscle is when the body isn’t fully warmed up and you have a sudden movement that leads to a little tear of the muscle. This tear could happen from sleeping the wrong way or moving around too quickly, and it can cause either an uncomfortable, stretching feeling or a sharp pain. A way to relieve those outcomes is by using the RICE method. When doing this method, you want to rest—but, what most folks do is actually stop all activity completely, which slows down the healing process. What you want to do is called an “active rest” by cutting down your activity levels but still keep moving around. However, you do want to stop doing the activity that caused the strain in the first place in order to prevent it from happening again or getting worse.

Along with rest, you want to use ice immediately after you’ve pulled the muscle to reduce inflammation and swelling in the area, and it’ll help cut down the pain levels that way you can start increasing your activity and begin healing. You want to use the ice for 20 minutes every hour. The next step is compression. Place some kind of bandage on the area that’s also going to help with inflammation and reduce the swelling, and make sure your compression isn’t so tight that it’s cutting off the blood flow. The last thing is elevation. Now, you’re not able to do this with every strain, but if you’ve found that you can, try to elevate the area, which is also beneficial in reducing swelling and allowing you to be more active.

 The most important thing is to try to increase your activity levels as soon as possible after the first day with gentle movements, that way you can get back to kicking the soccer ball with your grandkids, sleeping better, and walking around better in general.  

That’s it for today, everyone! Remember movement is medicine.

P.S. Here are the two FREE reports that complement the RICE method so well for the treatment of pulled muscles. Click on the links below to access these simple and effective books: http://sissonpt.com/knee-report    AND    http://sissonpt.com/back-report

If you’d like even more guidance, call us at Sisson & Associates today to get your free no no-obligation phone consultation to get even more tips and tricks to give you back your life, (804) 493-3256.