Heat or ice?
The most-asked question at the front desk, answered honestly: it matters less than you think, and here is how to choose anyway.
Priya Raman, Registered Physiotherapist
November 2025 · 3 min read
The research on heat versus ice is less decisive than the arguments about it. Neither changes tissue healing much on its own. What both do reliably is change how something feels, and that has real value, so choose by comfort and by timing rather than by rulebook.
If icing lets you sleep, ice. If heat lets you move, heat. Your body just voted.
A fair starting point
Fresh injury, first day or two, hot and swollen to the touch: ice tends to feel right, ten to fifteen minutes with a cloth between skin and pack. Stiff, achy, tension-flavoured pain, the kind that improves with a shower: heat tends to feel right, and it earns its keep before stretching or exercise.
What actually matters more
Gentle movement beats both. Ice and heat are comfort tools that make the useful things, moving, sleeping, staying calm about the injury, easier to do. If icing lets you sleep, ice. If heat lets you start your exercises, heat. If either makes it clearly worse, stop; your body just voted.