No doubt many people will have heard of this acronym especially if you participate in sport or regular exercise, but how many truly understand what it stands for and when do we need to use it?
So, PRICE stands for:_
P – Protection
R – Rest
I – Ice
C – Compression
E – Elevation
I’ll explain later on what each stage is used for but the most important thing to understand is that it is used during the first 72 hours of inflammation after you’ve hurt yourself.
Many times I get told, ‘oh but there’s no swelling’ or ‘it was only a little ache’, but the reality is you will have the signs and symptoms of inflammation (they are heat, swelling, redness or discolouration, pain and loss of function), so whilst you may not be able to see all of these by looking at the area, they will be happening. By putting PRICE into action, you help control the body’s own inflammatory response before it gets too bad.
When you hurt yourself, regardless of how badly, your body goes through various responses. Firstly, the injury creates damage to the local tissues which release chemicals ensuring there is a widening of the blood vessels. This increases the blood flow into the localised area resulting in inflammation.
The five symptoms of inflammation are caused for different reasons – the heat, redness and swelling are due to the widening of blood vessels, the pain is due to an increase in the tissue tension and substances that fire off the pain nerve endings within the damaged tissues (which can also be felt as an ache) & finally, the bleeding is when the localised blood capillaries and tissues are being broken due to the trauma sustained. Sounds confusing? Not really, you experience trauma and your body opts to tell you about it in a number of different ways , is all. But management of it is key.
So, how does PRICE help?
Protection – this is where you must stop doing any and all activities/positions that cause pain immediately. This is to ensure there no further damage occurs.
Rest – in the first two days, rest is the single most valuable way to help the healing process. Any movements or activities that can be done painfree are allowed and should continue.
Ice – this will help to counteract the earlier widening of localised blood vessels by narrowing them again. This in turn decreases the swelling and heat, helps numb the area reducing the pain felt.
Now, you do need to be careful when it comes to applying ice (to avoid ice burn) and this can be done in a number of ways, such as ice packs, frozen packet of peas or specific ice pack products. Whatever you choose to use, you must protect your skin so wrap it in a damp towels or apply some oil to the skin first to act as a barrier.
The ice is then applied roughly every 2 hours when you’re awake for 15-20 minutes as a general rule. However, when you are icing a joint, remove the ice every 5 minutes and gently move the area in a pain free range. I usually ask clients to ice three times a day but more frequently will certainly help.
Compression – this is where a bandage (usually with layers of cotton wool if possible) is applied to the area. These days there are many elasticated supports you can buy off the shelf for wrist, knees, ankles etc which can work well.
The main aim of compression is to help reduce the blood flow into the injured area and therefore help control the swelling. Should a bandage be applied too tightly and you may feel some pins/needles or excessive aching. Should this occur, then loosen the bandage slightly. If the bandage is near the fingers or toes, press on the nail and see if it returns back to normal colour quickly as this is a good, easy indicator if something is too tight.
Elevation – as best you can, raise the injured area above the level of your heart. This will help the body return blood and fluid from the injury site back to your heart which in turn, helps prevent further swelling.
If you can, begin some sort of low level non-weight bearing movements such as static exercises to help with drainage of the inflammation as working muscles create a pump action effect.
So, there you have it. PRICE is used to control the bleeding and prevent swelling created by an injury; protect the area from further damage and help you ease your pain. Most people don’t do any of this as it’s considered too much faff or because they have little time, however the benefits far outweigh that viewpoint – I do PRICE whenever I get hurt, so I know it works.