How is acute pain treated?

How is acute pain treated?

Marc Darrow (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Joint Rehabilitation Sports Medical Center, Inc. ) gives expert video advice on: Besides analgesics, what other treatments are there for acute pain? and more...

If it's a sports injury or if someone fell down, they may be using anti-inflammatory medication to bring down inflammation and reduce the acute pain. There's a typical protocol that is used in Western Medicine for injury; it is the RICE protocol: R-I-C-E, it equals rest, ice, compression, and elevation. So, for example if someone hurts their knee, we might rest that knee; tell them not to walk around on it for a while, we might put ice around it and use some compression with an Ace bandage, and then elevate it. The reason we use elevation typically above the heart level is so that any fluid that's occurred as a result of inflammation and accumulated in the oedema in the joint, or around the area, will then be drawn back into the heart, and re-circulated through the body. This will relieve the area from the excess fluid and the excess acute pain that takes place from the injury.