Icing for injuries needs more study
Thirteen pages on PainSci cite Collins 2008: 1. Contrast Hydrotherapy 2. Icing for Injuries, Tendinitis, and Inflammation 3. The Complete Guide to IT Band Syndrome 4. The Complete Guide to Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome 5. Complete Guide to Plantar Fasciitis 6. Shin Splints Treatment, The Complete Guide 7. Tennis Elbow Guide 8. The Complete Guide to Muscle Strains 9. Ice versus Heat for Pain and Injury 10. Voltaren Gel: Does It Work? 11. Guide to Repetitive Strain Injuries 12. Whole Body Cryotherapy for Pain 13. Icing is not dead

PainSci commentary on Collins 2008: ?This page is one of thousands in the PainScience.com bibliography. It is not a general article: it is focused on a single scientific paper, and it may provide only just enough context for the summary to make sense. Links to other papers and more general information are provided wherever possible.
Bafflingly, therapeutic icing (cryotherapy) is one of really those basic things that you’d think modern medical science would have mastered by now, but no — not even close!
This is a 2008 review of the inadequate evidence: just six experiments, and only two of them any good, one with slightly positive results and the other showing nothing at all. So that’s two studies that showed little or no benefit, which is leaning towards bad news, but it’s not enough data to clinch it.
Four animal studies have showed that icing reduced swelling (and too much is harmful, duh!). That evidence is mildly encouraging, but of course we can’t take animal studies to the bank.
This really just isn’t enough data, and the bottom line is that we don’t know, which is what Collins concluded: “there is insufficient evidence.” A 2015 review (with a broader scope, see Malanga) had a similar non-conclusion, mostly confirming the absence of evidence.
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
AIMS: The use of ice or cryotherapy in the management of acute soft tissue injuries is widely accepted and widely practised. This review was conducted to examine the medical literature to investigate if there is evidence to support an improvement in clinical outcome following the use of ice or cryotherapy.
METHODS: A comprehensive literature search was performed and all human and animal trials or systematic reviews pertaining to soft tissue trauma, ice or cryotherapy were assessed. The clinically relevant outcome measures were (1) a reduction in pain; (2) a reduction in swelling or oedema; (3) improved function; or (4) return to participation in normal activity.
RESULTS: Six relevant trials in humans were identified, four of which lacked randomisation and blinding. There were two well conducted randomised controlled trials, one showing supportive evidence for the use of a cooling gel and the other not reaching statistical significance. Four animal studies showed that modest cooling reduced oedema but excessive or prolonged cooling is damaging. There were two systematic reviews, one of which was inconclusive and the other suggested that ice may hasten return to participation.
CONCLUSION: There is insufficient evidence to suggest that cryotherapy improves clinical outcome in the management of soft tissue injuries.
related content
- “Mechanisms and efficacy of heat and cold therapies for musculoskeletal injury,” Malanga et al, Postgrad Med, 2015.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- Classical Conditioning Fails to Elicit Allodynia in an Experimental Study with Healthy Humans. Madden 2017 Pain Med.
- Topical glyceryl trinitrate (GTN) and eccentric exercises in the treatment of mid-portion achilles tendinopathy (the NEAT trial): a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled trial. Kirwan 2024 Br J Sports Med.
- Placebo analgesia in physical and psychological interventions: Systematic review and meta-analysis of three-armed trials. Hohenschurz-Schmidt 2024 Eur J Pain.
- Recovery trajectories in common musculoskeletal complaints by diagnosis contra prognostic phenotypes. Aasdahl 2021 BMC Musculoskelet Disord.
- Cannabidiol (CBD) products for pain: ineffective, expensive, and with potential harms. Moore 2023 J Pain.