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Bad icing news? 

 •  • by Paul Ingraham
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Weekly nuggets of pain science news and insight, usually 100-300 words, with the occasional longer post. The blog is the “director’s commentary” on the core content of PainScience.com: a library of major articles and books about common painful problems and popular treatments. See the blog archives or updates for the whole site.

Bad icing news? A small study of icing for severe muscle soreness after intense exercise (a.k.a DOMS) had “unexpected” results, according to the researchers. It seemed to do more harm than good. The icing victims had higher blood levels of molecules associated with muscle injury, and they felt more fatigued. Icing also had no effect on recovery of strength, or any biochemical sign of inflammation, as one would hope. A small study, to be sure, but how good can icing be if it can generate this kind of data? See also Yamane et al.

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