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Comment by denton-scratch | Hacker News Reader

"Ice" in the title should be ICE. It's an acronym - it's not about the use of cold compresses for pain relief. A lot of the comments here are about the use of frozen water. That's not what this article's about.

ICE stands for Impact, Confidence, and Ease. I think the acronym is rather stretched and awkward.

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Here is the part you missed:

"We also question the use of cryotherapy. Despite widespread use among clinicians and the population, there is no high-quality evidence on the efficacy of ice for treating soft-tissue injuries. Even if mostly analgesic, ice could potentially disrupt inflammation, angiogenesis and revascularisation, delay neutrophil and macrophage infiltration as well as increase immature myofibres."

Yes. The A in PEACE stands for “avoid icing” and anti inflammatory .

So more or less, the title may be correct as is.

This mirrors my experience. All I've really been able to say is ice on a pulled muscle dulls the pain. I also researched it and never found good evidence supporting it. I also haven't great evidence supporting foam rolling or stretching to relieve muscle pain.

My understanding, picked up as a kid sometime in the late 90s/early 2000s, was that ice makes injuries feel better while impeding healing. So it's a trade-off you had to make for yourself.

Reading stuff like this now kinda feels like we lost a bunch of knowledge in the past two decades.

Doctors here give out anti-inflammatory packs like candy, and I did a dive since it seemed crazy to me. If your body is increasing blood flow to the area there's got to be a reason for it?

All I could find though was statements that it doesn't serve a role/gets in the way of healing, something about maybe being mainly to prevent infection at a wound site?

What you said seems reasonable, but can you point to any sources? I'd like to confirm for myself.

Doesn’t it stand for “ice compress elevate”??

I was taught RICE which is:

Rest, Immobilization, Cold, Elevation

The article mentions a shift from ICE to RICE (which I’m aware of) and then another shift to PRICE, which I’m not aware of— anyone know what the P stands for?

Protection. Preventing further injury.

Seems… pointless? Obviously protect all of you from further injury insomuch as you can.

It seems like someone just wanted to invent another acronym.

It's not meant to be general protection, like wearing shin guards next time so you don't get hurt at all.

Instead, they mean that you should protect the injury so that it's not exacerbated: brace it or put it in a sling, have the patient use crutches, etc.

Yes, I'm not sure where GP got that other acronym.

And, given that, people talking about ice (frozen water) is fine, since that's specifically one of the things the new paper seems to be suggesting people stop doing, as well as stopping the use of anti-inflammatories.

I got it here:

https://university.hygger.io/en/articles/3272334-lesson-6-ic...

I didn't search beyond the first result; but it seemed clear that it was an acronym, and it wasn't expanded in the article. So there may be other ways of expanding the acronym.

People use the same acronyms in different fields to mean different things, so it's definitely a good idea to double-check that is in the right domain.

"Impact" may have made it look like it's talking about an injury, but actually those acronyms you found are about prioritizing tasks in product development.

The correct acronym, which includes ice (frozen water), is in the title of the citation in the abstract.

> Rehabilitation of soft tissue injuries can be complex. Over the years, acronyms guiding their management have evolved from ICE to RICE[1], then to PRICE[2] and POLICE[3].

> [1] van den Bekerom MPJ, Struijs PAA, Blankevoort L, et al. What is the evidence for rest, ice, compression, and elevation therapy in the treatment of ankle sprains in adults. J Athl Train2012;47: 435-43.

You don’t even need to consider context, you need to use the right acronym to start. The current acronym isn’t even ICE - it’s RICE.

That website is about project management. Nothing to do with medicine or treating injuries.

I knew that as RICE: Rest Ice Compression Elevation. I remember seeing in in medwiki which was a wikipedia curated my doctors that Standford tried to launch iirc.

That's what I remember as well. It seems like the acronym has been so successful that it remains popular even though no one can agree one what it stands for.

I usually see it as RICE - rest, ice, compression, elevation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RICE_(medicine)

To be clear, though, they say "avoid icing" (i.e. The use of cold compresses for pain relief). It isn't what the article is primarily about, but it still is not their recommendations.

Huh… you’re saying ICE also isn’t the end of RICE, or Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation?

All this is confusing.

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