How To Treat An ACL Injury With A Lava Sand Heating Pad
There are many different injuries you can sustain while playing sports or even just going out and walking around.
An ACL injury is one of those injuries that you can sustain and that you will need to treat.
Treating an ACL injury includes icing the area for 10-20 minutes every 2 hours for the first 3 days after the injury. You should also consult with your doctor for further information on your recovery.
Read on to find out what else you need to do to recover from an ACL injury.
Not medical advice
It is important as you read this article that you remember this is not medical advice we are presenting.
While we do as much research as we can to give you the best advice, this article is not the end all to your needs for recovery.
We will give some information about how a lava sand heating pad can help you recover from an ACL injury.
But outside out this information, you should contact your local doctor and see them about your injury.
It is also important to remember that there are different degrees to ACL injuries, and if you have one of the more serious ones, some ice treatment is not going to lead to your recovery.
So consult with your local doctor after reading this article.
What is an ACL?
According to the Mayo Clinic:
"An ACL injury is a tear or sprain of the anterior cruciate (KROO-she-ate) ligament (ACL) — one of the strong bands of tissue that help connect your thigh bone (femur) to your shinbone (tibia). ACL injuries most commonly occur during sports that involve sudden stops or changes in direction, jumping and landing — such as soccer, basketball, football and downhill skiing."
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/acl-injury/symptoms-causes/syc-20350738
The ACL is the ligament that connects the thigh bone and the shine bone together.
If this ligament gets injured, then that limits the amount of weight you can put on your leg while walking.
And depending on the severity of the injury, you might not be able to walk at all.
There are a few signs that someone can know they have injured their ACL.
The first of these signs is hearing a "popping" noise during an activity like basketball or football.
This is a distinctive difference from an MCL injury, where you will not hear the popping noise when it gets injured.
Other signs of an ACL injury include inflammation, swelling, pain and possible bruising in the knee area.
What causes ACL injuries?
Again, according to the Mayo Clinic:
"ACLÂ injuries often happen during sports and fitness activities that can put stress on the knee:
- Suddenly slowing down and changing direction (cutting)
- Pivoting with your foot firmly planted
- Landing awkwardly from a jump
- Stopping suddenly
- Receiving a direct blow to the knee or having a collision, such as a football tackle
When the ligament is damaged, there is usually a partial or complete tear of the tissue. A mild injury may stretch the ligament but leave it intact."
These are the exact same things that can cause an MCL injury.
So it is important to know the different between when you have injured your MCL and when you have injured your ACL.
You hear in the news mostly of people playing basketball and football that sustain these injuries.
And you can see from the ways you injure your ACL, this is not surprising for these sports.
Before you injure your ACL, though, there are a few exercises you can do to help prevent the injury.
These exercises include:
- Do proper stretching. Stretching helps warm up the ACL ligament to help reduce the chance of it getting injured during your workout session. These stretches include single leg bridge, single leg reach, vertical jumps, and squats. The stretches will help warm the ligament and decrease the chance of injury
- Use proper footwear. Make sure you are wearing the correct shoes for whatever sport you may be playing. If you are playing basketball, make sure the shoes are high top shoes. If you are playing football, proper shoes with cleats. And make sure that the shoes fit properly to your feet, not too big and not too small.
- Targeted strength training. You can target specific areas of your body during strength training. You can also do this with your ACL to help strengthen them against future injury. If you do strength training on your quads and hamstrings, this should do quite a bit to help you.
- Improve balance. Perform acts that will help you improve your balance. This might include balancing on one foot for a minute and then move onto balancing on the other foot.
- See a sports medicine specialist. Contact a sport medicine person that might be able to give you more advice. They will be able to review your medical history and give further advice as to what you should do based on your history.
ACL Injury Recovery
Again, it is important to remember that the below information I am about to give does not replace medical advice from a medical professional.
There are a few things you can do to aid in the recovery from an ACL injury.
To remember the steps, remember the RICE method (rest, ice, compression, and elevation).
First, make sure you allow yourself plenty of rest from the injury.
This includes lying or sitting down in your bed for a long period of time.
Make sure you are doing it in a relaxing way so that your bed can recuperate.
Next, ice the injured area.
Apply ice to the injured area for 15-20 minutes every 2 hours.
Icing the area will slow blood flow to that area, which in turn will reduce the swelling and inflammation, which then decreases the amount of pain you will feel in that area.
Then, apply compression to the affected area.
This could include a compression sleeve around the knee area.
If you don't have a compression sleeve, then an elastic bandage should do you just fine.
Just like with the ice, the compression sleeve will help to reduce the swelling and inflammation to the area.
Lastly, make sure you are elevating the affected knee.
This will slow blood flow to the area and reduce.
Remember that reducing the blood flow to the area will help reduce inflammation and swelling, which will then help the body to recover from the injury.
Do not take extreme measures to reduce the blood flow, though, as taking away too much of the blood flow will result in needing to amputate that leg.
So using the RICE method is the most effective way in reducing the blood flow.
Outside of doing the RICE method, if the pain from your injury doesn't seem to subside after a few weeks, seek the help from a medical professional to do further testing to determine if you need surgery to repair the ACL.
How lava sand heating pad will help
Now that we've covered what an ACL injury is and how you might help to recover from it, let's cover why a lava sand heating pad will help you recover.
As we have mentioned above, icing the affected area helps to take great steps towards your recovery from ACL injury.
And a lava sand heating pad can help with this.
First, a lava sand heating pad is great for keeping the cold in for a long period of time.
If you put it in the freezer for an hour or two, then the lava sand heating pad should last you longer than the 15 to 20 minutes.
So once you decide you are going to ice your knee, pull that lava sand heating pad out of the freezer, get nice and comfortable on your bed and apply the cold pack to your knee for 15 to 20 minutes.
You might need to wrap the cold pack in a towel before applying it to the knee since it could be a lot colder than you can handle.
Once it has been on your knee for the given 15 to 20 minutes, have someone take the lava sand heating pad from you and put it back in the freezer.
Then, leave it in the freezer for two hours until you are ready to apply it to your knee again.
Do this throughout the day until it is time to go to bed.
Another nice thing about the lava sand heating pad is it can go back and forth between cold and hot pretty easily.
If for some reason the heating pad needs to be used for hot in between treatment, you can throw the pad in the microwave and heat it up for other treatment.
Then, when you need it for cold, throw it back into the freezer.
Other heating pads, like those with rice and wheat, aren't going to be able to go back and forth between hot and cold so well.
Because the insides are food, the switching between hot and cold are going to lead to the heating pad being ruined.
This won't happen with the lava sand heating pad.
Because they are filled with sand, it can more easily go through different heat and cold treatments without the heating pad being destroyed.
Lastly, the lava sand heating pad will conform to the shape you need it to.
Because it is sand, the grains of it are really small.
This means that if you want to put it on you knee, then the heating pad will conform to the shape of your knee more easily then the rice of wheat pads.
This will help with decreased blood flow and quicker recovery.
Summary
ACL injuries are common with those who are regularly partaking in sporting activities.
If you hear a popping sound in your knee, then chances are good that you have sustained an ACL injury.
Make sure to seek help from a medical professional and use the RICE method in your recovery.
Using a lava sand heating pad as your cold pack will aid in the recovery by giving you long cold time and will conform to the shape you need it to.