If you were trained to recommend RICE (Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation) for strains and sprains, it may be time to update your knowledge a bit. In this episode, I share what came up in a recent Monday Mentoring session: the shift from RICE to PEACE & LOVE, why icing and total rest can slow tissue healing, and steps to promote recovery from soft tissue injury.
In this episode, we cover:
Why the medical community moved away from RICE for soft tissue injuries
The PEACE acronym explained: Protection, Elevation, Avoid Anti-inflammatories, Compression, Education
The LOVE acronym explained: Load, Optimism, Vascularization, Exercise
Why suppressing inflammation with ice or NSAIDs may extend healing time
When gentle movement and load are better than total rest
My clinical additions: topical herbs and nutrient density for tissue repair
Where to find the BMJ graphic to share with clients
Timestamps:
00:00 - Introduction: soft tissue injuries in Monday Mentoring
01:00 - The RICE paradigm and why it's becoming outdated
02:05 - Introducing PEACE & LOVE as the updated framework
02:40 - P for Protection: why total rest slows healing
03:33 - E for Elevation: managing swelling without stopping inflammation
04:00 - A for Avoid Anti-inflammatories: ice and NSAIDs reconsidered
04:38 - C for Compression: gentle support and lymphatic flow
05:02 - E for Education: trusting the body's healing capacity
05:50 - Moving into LOVE: the sub-acute and recovery phase
06:06 - L for Load: reintroducing movement without pain
06:48 - O for Optimism: mindset and conditioned recovery
07:23 - V for Vascularization: blood flow, cardio, and circulatory stimulants
08:05 - E for Exercise: returning to strength and mobility
08:30 - Herbal topicals and nutrition support for tissue healing
09:10 - Link to the BMJ graphic and client handout resources
Have a clinical or business question you'd like me to answer on a future episode? I'd love to answer it. Click on the "Submit a Question to Camille" button at intheclinic.com.
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Camille's Helpful Links for Practitioners
WEBVTT
00:00:00.322 --> 00:00:03.767
Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman.
00:00:03.767 --> 00:00:06.827
I'm an herbalist and nutritionist, and in this podcast, I share tips,
00:00:06.827 --> 00:00:09.999
tidbits, and resources that might be helpful for other practitioners.
00:00:10.655 --> 00:00:15.996
Today, I wanted to talk to you about how we support clients who have soft tissue injuries.
00:00:16.662 --> 00:00:20.365
This came up in a session of Monday Mentoring a couple weeks ago.
00:00:20.766 --> 00:00:23.547
If you're not familiar with Monday Mentoring, it is a community of practice
00:00:23.547 --> 00:00:27.267
that I run for people who are in practice as herbalists or nutritionists.
00:00:27.267 --> 00:00:31.215
And we get together every week and talk about supporting each other with cases,
00:00:31.522 --> 00:00:34.722
running a business, all that kind of stuff. So that's the deal.
00:00:35.256 --> 00:00:39.337
And in a session not too long ago we were talking about how to support clients
00:00:39.337 --> 00:00:41.113
who have strains and sprains,
00:00:41.849 --> 00:00:46.417
and i'm sure if you've been alive long enough you have experienced one of these
00:00:46.417 --> 00:00:49.547
or you know somebody who has somebody in your family has so on and so forth
00:00:49.547 --> 00:00:52.977
and sometimes clients will come to us for suggestions and advice here as well,
00:00:53.644 --> 00:00:58.007
and i realized that many of us especially you know depending on how old you
00:00:58.007 --> 00:01:03.568
are you may have grown up hearing or even being trained in the paradigm of RICE,
00:01:03.899 --> 00:01:06.767
which is an acronym for Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.
00:01:07.301 --> 00:01:10.107
I don't know about you, but for me, it's like ingrained in my brain.
00:01:10.107 --> 00:01:11.452
Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.
00:01:12.044 --> 00:01:15.517
That's what you do if you have a strain, if you've ruled out that it's not broken,
00:01:15.517 --> 00:01:16.978
it doesn't need further medical treatment.
00:01:17.837 --> 00:01:20.996
That's what you're supposed to do. However, a while back,
00:01:21.815 --> 00:01:27.711
the medical community kind of pivoted. And now the idea is that actually some
00:01:27.711 --> 00:01:32.047
parts of rice may be inhibiting healing as opposed to promoting healing.
00:01:32.418 --> 00:01:36.901
So there is a new acronym in town I wanted to share with you all.
00:01:36.901 --> 00:01:38.165
It's actually not that new.
00:01:38.908 --> 00:01:42.241
It's not that new, but it's new relative to rice. And not everybody has heard
00:01:42.241 --> 00:01:46.151
of it, depending on when you did your training and which circles you've been involved in.
00:01:46.151 --> 00:01:48.911
Of course, we can't all be expected to know everything that comes out all the
00:01:48.911 --> 00:01:51.001
time, and that's why I'm sharing this here.
00:01:51.001 --> 00:01:55.041
So if this is old news for you, no problem. You can skip ahead to the next episode.
00:01:55.041 --> 00:01:59.821
But if you did want to be updated, let me share with you the acronym that a
00:01:59.821 --> 00:02:04.867
lot of folks are using instead of RICE. And it's a little bit more bulky.
00:02:05.029 --> 00:02:07.380
So, you know, just keep that in mind.
00:02:07.578 --> 00:02:11.072
But now it's called, the acronym is called Peace and Love.
00:02:11.572 --> 00:02:15.641
So you can see it's got a lot more letters. And the key things that have changed
00:02:15.641 --> 00:02:21.021
about rice are that with rice one of the heart one of the main things was ice
00:02:21.021 --> 00:02:24.795
we're all thought oh okay you sprained your ankle you put ice on it but now,
00:02:25.509 --> 00:02:28.691
the there is increasing evidence that ice actually
00:02:29.131 --> 00:02:35.477
suppresses tissue healing it suppresses inflammation and inflammation is a key part
00:02:35.779 --> 00:02:40.141
of the initial healing processes and actually the ongoing healing processes
00:02:40.141 --> 00:02:44.431
for these types of injuries so we don't want to suppress inflammation.
00:02:44.431 --> 00:02:51.291
Now, there are times when we may need to sleep or sometimes you just use what
00:02:51.291 --> 00:02:53.171
you have and so on and so forth.
00:02:53.171 --> 00:02:58.521
But generally speaking, the idea is to let the inflammation be because it's
00:02:58.521 --> 00:03:03.517
a key part of how we heal and to not try to suppress it.
00:03:04.366 --> 00:03:07.566
So let me tell you what the peace
00:03:07.566 --> 00:03:10.822
and love stands for, and I'll just go through a couple of key points.
00:03:11.246 --> 00:03:14.787
All right, so let's start with peace. I'll read it to you, and then we'll go through it bit by bit.
00:03:15.170 --> 00:03:21.137
So the P is for protection, E is for elevation, A is for avoid anti-inflammatories,
00:03:21.421 --> 00:03:24.550
C is for compression, and E is for education.
00:03:25.038 --> 00:03:27.316
All right, so I think some of these are maybe a little extraneous,
00:03:27.316 --> 00:03:29.876
but I do like peace and love. I think that's easy to remember.
00:03:29.876 --> 00:03:33.380
So anyway, you take what you can get. All right, so the protection.
00:03:33.856 --> 00:03:37.566
This has been changed from R, which is rest, to P, protection.
00:03:37.763 --> 00:03:41.866
And the idea is, while yes, you may need to rest substantially,
00:03:41.866 --> 00:03:44.677
especially in the first couple of days after this type of injury.
00:03:45.517 --> 00:03:48.486
Complete rest may actually slow the healing process.
00:03:48.486 --> 00:03:52.746
So they changed it to pee for protection because what we really want to do is
00:03:52.746 --> 00:03:57.076
protect that injured area from getting injured anymore.
00:03:57.552 --> 00:04:01.987
And the way that we do this is by listening to the pain signals.
00:04:02.307 --> 00:04:08.251
So limiting movement may be something that you need to do for a couple days after the injury.
00:04:08.657 --> 00:04:12.398
But generally speaking, you don't want complete rest.
00:04:12.735 --> 00:04:21.185
Instead, you want to avoid anything that's going to exacerbate or that causes pain, but to use the,
00:04:21.879 --> 00:04:26.066
tissue, the area, whatever is affected, you want to use it to the extent that
00:04:26.066 --> 00:04:29.518
you can without causing pain, because that's going to promote the healing process.
00:04:30.040 --> 00:04:33.163
E for elevation, that didn't change. That is still thought to be helpful.
00:04:33.477 --> 00:04:37.366
It does reduce swelling, which can reduce some of the pain. It doesn't inhibit
00:04:37.366 --> 00:04:41.244
inflammation, but it can reduce swelling by bringing fluids,
00:04:41.674 --> 00:04:45.991
you know, sending them back to the heart, clearing out lymphatic flow, that sort of thing.
00:04:46.322 --> 00:04:48.604
So elevation is still recommended. You don't have to necessarily.
00:04:49.513 --> 00:04:52.362
Elevate on purpose. You don't have to sit around and elevate all the time,
00:04:52.362 --> 00:04:56.992
but if you are sitting or lying down, it is good to elevate to the extent that's
00:04:56.992 --> 00:04:59.358
possible and feasible within your lifestyle.
00:04:59.898 --> 00:05:03.624
The A is avoid anti-inflammatories. So this includes things like icing,
00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:07.670
but also working with anti-inflammatory medications like NSAIDs.
00:05:07.967 --> 00:05:11.319
Again, if that's what you have and somebody's in a lot of pain and so forth,
00:05:12.171 --> 00:05:13.282
you know, you have to make that decision.
00:05:13.282 --> 00:05:16.397
But we don't want to be just constantly popping these pills,
00:05:16.902 --> 00:05:19.922
trying to suppress inflammation, because yes, it does suppress pain,
00:05:19.922 --> 00:05:25.102
but it also seems to suppress the healing process and extend the time that it
00:05:25.102 --> 00:05:26.538
takes to recover and heal.
00:05:27.078 --> 00:05:32.012
So we want to try to back off of those medications, especially acutely in that
00:05:32.012 --> 00:05:34.596
initial healing phase to the extent possible.
00:05:34.903 --> 00:05:38.322
Compression, this is things like wrapping it or bandaging it.
00:05:38.322 --> 00:05:42.652
This is similar to elevation. It's really managing the swelling and potentially
00:05:42.652 --> 00:05:46.575
providing a little bit of additional support to the area that has been injured.
00:05:47.582 --> 00:05:51.588
You don't want to restrict blood flow. It's just what we think of as like a
00:05:51.988 --> 00:05:56.682
gentle compression as opposed to wrapping it as tightly as you can possibly stand.
00:05:57.242 --> 00:06:02.228
We want blood to continue flowing to the area. That's really important. And then education.
00:06:02.843 --> 00:06:08.792
This one is where we help people to trust that their body knows how to heal
00:06:08.792 --> 00:06:10.694
this. We don't want to over treat.
00:06:10.944 --> 00:06:14.092
Of course, this is outside of most of our scope. So I'm telling you this more
00:06:14.092 --> 00:06:17.822
for an educational component, as opposed to you being the primary manager of
00:06:17.822 --> 00:06:18.956
somebody's soft tissue injury.
00:06:19.403 --> 00:06:24.122
But we do want people to understand that sometimes the best way to heal and
00:06:24.122 --> 00:06:27.255
recover is to do nothing as opposed to be like, okay, I need to,
00:06:27.852 --> 00:06:30.692
you know, engage in all these things and take all these medicines and get all
00:06:30.692 --> 00:06:32.398
these images and scans and things like that.
00:06:32.711 --> 00:06:36.038
If you have ruled out that the area is broken or needs further treatment,
00:06:36.426 --> 00:06:40.762
then really it's about helping people understand how they, you know,
00:06:40.762 --> 00:06:44.019
how the body heals and what they can do to support that.
00:06:44.758 --> 00:06:50.140
All right, so then love. Love comes after the initial immediate phase.
00:06:50.140 --> 00:06:53.210
So the peace part is sort of like right away, first couple days,
00:06:53.210 --> 00:06:56.489
one to three days, perhaps. Those are the things to think about.
00:06:56.907 --> 00:06:59.871
After those first few days, when people are usually kind of back,
00:07:00.538 --> 00:07:04.210
you know, getting back closer to normal function, not everybody,
00:07:04.210 --> 00:07:07.911
but that's, you know, you're through the initial situation.
00:07:08.155 --> 00:07:12.474
Then you go into love, the love phase of peace and love.
00:07:12.886 --> 00:07:19.610
L is for load, and we want to increase load on the affective area to the extent
00:07:19.610 --> 00:07:21.847
possible without causing pain.
00:07:22.283 --> 00:07:25.590
This is where you may need to work with occupational therapy,
00:07:25.590 --> 00:07:29.290
physical therapy, somebody who knows what they're doing, but you know,
00:07:29.290 --> 00:07:32.269
depending on the extent and nature of the injury.
00:07:32.569 --> 00:07:36.200
But you do want to get back into the game, so to speak.
00:07:37.515 --> 00:07:43.152
We don't want to avoid putting pressure on the area unless it is causing pain, okay?
00:07:44.350 --> 00:07:48.733
O is for optimism. I think this one's kind of fun. In the official graphic,
00:07:48.988 --> 00:07:52.066
I'll share, it's from the British Medical Journal, the official post.
00:07:52.066 --> 00:07:55.598
It's an editorial post where they proposed the peace and love.
00:07:56.344 --> 00:08:01.650
Under O, it says, condition your brain for optimal recovery by being confident and positive.
00:08:02.236 --> 00:08:05.616
So I think that's nice. Of course, that's easier for some people than others,
00:08:05.616 --> 00:08:09.906
but I do appreciate trying to watch what you're thinking and not going down
00:08:09.906 --> 00:08:12.789
the pathway of like, oh, it'll never be the same. What have I done?
00:08:13.109 --> 00:08:17.076
So on and so forth. we do want to, you know, we don't want to trust the healing
00:08:17.076 --> 00:08:20.256
process. It comes back to the same thing where it's like your body knows what
00:08:20.256 --> 00:08:23.093
to do. We just have to give it the ingredients to do that.
00:08:23.734 --> 00:08:29.896
The V is for vascularization. And here they're talking about continuing to do
00:08:29.896 --> 00:08:36.326
any kind of cardiovascular-based activity, again, without causing pain or further
00:08:36.326 --> 00:08:37.560
exacerbating the injury.
00:08:37.903 --> 00:08:41.776
But we do anything that's going to increase blood flow to the area can be helpful
00:08:41.776 --> 00:08:44.826
for the healing process. So vascularization, that's what that refers to.
00:08:44.826 --> 00:08:47.742
So that might mean bumping up your movement slowly.
00:08:48.044 --> 00:08:53.916
I think it could also look like herbal foot soaks, just anything like that where
00:08:53.916 --> 00:08:55.006
you're going to be getting tissue.
00:08:55.006 --> 00:08:58.553
And this is not included in the peace and love protocol officially,
00:08:58.895 --> 00:09:02.216
but I like to think about from an herbal perspective, circulatory stimulants,
00:09:02.216 --> 00:09:05.303
things like that, that can get the blood flowing.
00:09:05.581 --> 00:09:09.106
Seems to me that fits in that category. And then lastly, exercise,
00:09:09.106 --> 00:09:12.866
coming back to mobility, strength, and so forth. And you want to.
00:09:13.971 --> 00:09:17.309
You want to take that active approach to recovery, which again may need to be
00:09:17.611 --> 00:09:20.774
guided by somebody who knows what they're doing.
00:09:21.385 --> 00:09:25.943
And that's where physical therapy or something similar to that may come into play.
00:09:26.361 --> 00:09:32.302
Okay, so that is peace and love in case you needed the updated version of rice
00:09:32.302 --> 00:09:34.163
for folks who have soft tissue injury.
00:09:34.610 --> 00:09:40.102
I do think that our topical herbal products and of course thinking about nutrient
00:09:40.102 --> 00:09:44.112
density from a nutrition standpoint when we are going through any kind of healing
00:09:44.112 --> 00:09:47.532
process, that nutrition, nutrient density is really important.
00:09:47.532 --> 00:09:49.283
So I'll just add those in there.
00:09:49.957 --> 00:09:54.682
I hope that's helpful. I'll put the blog post in the show notes in case you want to check it out.
00:09:54.984 --> 00:09:58.612
There's a nice handy graphic that you can show your clients if you want to put
00:09:58.612 --> 00:10:01.240
in the handout or something like that. So there you go.
00:10:01.814 --> 00:10:06.372
If you have any questions, let me know. And if you are not already getting my
00:10:06.372 --> 00:10:09.562
practitioner notes newsletter every Thursday, I would love to send that to you
00:10:09.562 --> 00:10:10.552
the next time it goes out.
00:10:11.220 --> 00:10:14.972
I send out just a little note, something about clinical practice,
00:10:14.972 --> 00:10:19.552
something I've noticed, any kind of notes from the field, so to speak,
00:10:19.552 --> 00:10:24.376
as well as three different resources each week that I think might be helpful.
00:10:24.498 --> 00:10:27.542
That might include recipes, it might include journal articles,
00:10:27.542 --> 00:10:30.882
it might include classes and workshops that people are doing,
00:10:30.882 --> 00:10:33.669
or anything else that's on my mind, a book I read that's really interesting,
00:10:34.070 --> 00:10:37.785
that sort of thing, as well as any upcoming events at Bloom and Grow that might be helpful for you.
00:10:38.104 --> 00:10:42.145
So you can sign up for that newsletter at camillefreeman.com or intheclinic.com.
00:10:42.354 --> 00:10:44.722
I'll put the link in the show notes to that as well in case you want to sign
00:10:44.722 --> 00:10:48.062
up I'd love to see you there Otherwise, thank you so much for all the work that
00:10:48.062 --> 00:10:51.363
you do I hope you have an amazing day and I will talk to you really soon.
00:00:00.322 --> 00:00:03.767
Hi there. Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman.
00:00:03.767 --> 00:00:06.827
I'm an herbalist and nutritionist, and in this podcast, I share tips,
00:00:06.827 --> 00:00:09.999
tidbits, and resources that might be helpful for other practitioners.
00:00:10.655 --> 00:00:15.996
Today, I wanted to talk to you about how we support clients who have soft tissue injuries.
00:00:16.662 --> 00:00:20.365
This came up in a session of Monday Mentoring a couple weeks ago.
00:00:20.766 --> 00:00:23.547
If you're not familiar with Monday Mentoring, it is a community of practice
00:00:23.547 --> 00:00:27.267
that I run for people who are in practice as herbalists or nutritionists.
00:00:27.267 --> 00:00:31.215
And we get together every week and talk about supporting each other with cases,
00:00:31.522 --> 00:00:34.722
running a business, all that kind of stuff. So that's the deal.
00:00:35.256 --> 00:00:39.337
And in a session not too long ago we were talking about how to support clients
00:00:39.337 --> 00:00:41.113
who have strains and sprains,
00:00:41.849 --> 00:00:46.417
and i'm sure if you've been alive long enough you have experienced one of these
00:00:46.417 --> 00:00:49.547
or you know somebody who has somebody in your family has so on and so forth
00:00:49.547 --> 00:00:52.977
and sometimes clients will come to us for suggestions and advice here as well,
00:00:53.644 --> 00:00:58.007
and i realized that many of us especially you know depending on how old you
00:00:58.007 --> 00:01:03.568
are you may have grown up hearing or even being trained in the paradigm of RICE,
00:01:03.899 --> 00:01:06.767
which is an acronym for Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.
00:01:07.301 --> 00:01:10.107
I don't know about you, but for me, it's like ingrained in my brain.
00:01:10.107 --> 00:01:11.452
Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation.
00:01:12.044 --> 00:01:15.517
That's what you do if you have a strain, if you've ruled out that it's not broken,
00:01:15.517 --> 00:01:16.978
it doesn't need further medical treatment.
00:01:17.837 --> 00:01:20.996
That's what you're supposed to do. However, a while back,
00:01:21.815 --> 00:01:27.711
the medical community kind of pivoted. And now the idea is that actually some
00:01:27.711 --> 00:01:32.047
parts of rice may be inhibiting healing as opposed to promoting healing.
00:01:32.418 --> 00:01:36.901
So there is a new acronym in town I wanted to share with you all.
00:01:36.901 --> 00:01:38.165
It's actually not that new.
00:01:38.908 --> 00:01:42.241
It's not that new, but it's new relative to rice. And not everybody has heard
00:01:42.241 --> 00:01:46.151
of it, depending on when you did your training and which circles you've been involved in.
00:01:46.151 --> 00:01:48.911
Of course, we can't all be expected to know everything that comes out all the
00:01:48.911 --> 00:01:51.001
time, and that's why I'm sharing this here.
00:01:51.001 --> 00:01:55.041
So if this is old news for you, no problem. You can skip ahead to the next episode.
00:01:55.041 --> 00:01:59.821
But if you did want to be updated, let me share with you the acronym that a
00:01:59.821 --> 00:02:04.867
lot of folks are using instead of RICE. And it's a little bit more bulky.
00:02:05.029 --> 00:02:07.380
So, you know, just keep that in mind.
00:02:07.578 --> 00:02:11.072
But now it's called, the acronym is called Peace and Love.
00:02:11.572 --> 00:02:15.641
So you can see it's got a lot more letters. And the key things that have changed
00:02:15.641 --> 00:02:21.021
about rice are that with rice one of the heart one of the main things was ice
00:02:21.021 --> 00:02:24.795
we're all thought oh okay you sprained your ankle you put ice on it but now,
00:02:25.509 --> 00:02:28.691
the there is increasing evidence that ice actually
00:02:29.131 --> 00:02:35.477
suppresses tissue healing it suppresses inflammation and inflammation is a key part
00:02:35.779 --> 00:02:40.141
of the initial healing processes and actually the ongoing healing processes
00:02:40.141 --> 00:02:44.431
for these types of injuries so we don't want to suppress inflammation.
00:02:44.431 --> 00:02:51.291
Now, there are times when we may need to sleep or sometimes you just use what
00:02:51.291 --> 00:02:53.171
you have and so on and so forth.
00:02:53.171 --> 00:02:58.521
But generally speaking, the idea is to let the inflammation be because it's
00:02:58.521 --> 00:03:03.517
a key part of how we heal and to not try to suppress it.
00:03:04.366 --> 00:03:07.566
So let me tell you what the peace
00:03:07.566 --> 00:03:10.822
and love stands for, and I'll just go through a couple of key points.
00:03:11.246 --> 00:03:14.787
All right, so let's start with peace. I'll read it to you, and then we'll go through it bit by bit.
00:03:15.170 --> 00:03:21.137
So the P is for protection, E is for elevation, A is for avoid anti-inflammatories,
00:03:21.421 --> 00:03:24.550
C is for compression, and E is for education.
00:03:25.038 --> 00:03:27.316
All right, so I think some of these are maybe a little extraneous,
00:03:27.316 --> 00:03:29.876
but I do like peace and love. I think that's easy to remember.
00:03:29.876 --> 00:03:33.380
So anyway, you take what you can get. All right, so the protection.
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This has been changed from R, which is rest, to P, protection.
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And the idea is, while yes, you may need to rest substantially,
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especially in the first couple of days after this type of injury.
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Complete rest may actually slow the healing process.
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So they changed it to pee for protection because what we really want to do is
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protect that injured area from getting injured anymore.
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And the way that we do this is by listening to the pain signals.
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So limiting movement may be something that you need to do for a couple days after the injury.
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But generally speaking, you don't want complete rest.
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Instead, you want to avoid anything that's going to exacerbate or that causes pain, but to use the,
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tissue, the area, whatever is affected, you want to use it to the extent that
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you can without causing pain, because that's going to promote the healing process.
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E for elevation, that didn't change. That is still thought to be helpful.
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It does reduce swelling, which can reduce some of the pain. It doesn't inhibit
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inflammation, but it can reduce swelling by bringing fluids,
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you know, sending them back to the heart, clearing out lymphatic flow, that sort of thing.
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So elevation is still recommended. You don't have to necessarily.
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Elevate on purpose. You don't have to sit around and elevate all the time,
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but if you are sitting or lying down, it is good to elevate to the extent that's
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possible and feasible within your lifestyle.
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The A is avoid anti-inflammatories. So this includes things like icing,
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but also working with anti-inflammatory medications like NSAIDs.
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Again, if that's what you have and somebody's in a lot of pain and so forth,
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you know, you have to make that decision.
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But we don't want to be just constantly popping these pills,
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trying to suppress inflammation, because yes, it does suppress pain,
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but it also seems to suppress the healing process and extend the time that it
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takes to recover and heal.
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So we want to try to back off of those medications, especially acutely in that
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initial healing phase to the extent possible.
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Compression, this is things like wrapping it or bandaging it.
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This is similar to elevation. It's really managing the swelling and potentially
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providing a little bit of additional support to the area that has been injured.
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You don't want to restrict blood flow. It's just what we think of as like a
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gentle compression as opposed to wrapping it as tightly as you can possibly stand.
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We want blood to continue flowing to the area. That's really important. And then education.
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This one is where we help people to trust that their body knows how to heal
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this. We don't want to over treat.
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Of course, this is outside of most of our scope. So I'm telling you this more
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for an educational component, as opposed to you being the primary manager of
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somebody's soft tissue injury.
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But we do want people to understand that sometimes the best way to heal and
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recover is to do nothing as opposed to be like, okay, I need to,
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you know, engage in all these things and take all these medicines and get all
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these images and scans and things like that.
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If you have ruled out that the area is broken or needs further treatment,
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then really it's about helping people understand how they, you know,
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how the body heals and what they can do to support that.
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All right, so then love. Love comes after the initial immediate phase.
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So the peace part is sort of like right away, first couple days,
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one to three days, perhaps. Those are the things to think about.
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After those first few days, when people are usually kind of back,
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you know, getting back closer to normal function, not everybody,
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but that's, you know, you're through the initial situation.
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Then you go into love, the love phase of peace and love.
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L is for load, and we want to increase load on the affective area to the extent
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possible without causing pain.
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This is where you may need to work with occupational therapy,
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physical therapy, somebody who knows what they're doing, but you know,
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depending on the extent and nature of the injury.
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But you do want to get back into the game, so to speak.
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We don't want to avoid putting pressure on the area unless it is causing pain, okay?
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O is for optimism. I think this one's kind of fun. In the official graphic,
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I'll share, it's from the British Medical Journal, the official post.
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It's an editorial post where they proposed the peace and love.
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Under O, it says, condition your brain for optimal recovery by being confident and positive.
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So I think that's nice. Of course, that's easier for some people than others,
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but I do appreciate trying to watch what you're thinking and not going down
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the pathway of like, oh, it'll never be the same. What have I done?
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So on and so forth. we do want to, you know, we don't want to trust the healing
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process. It comes back to the same thing where it's like your body knows what
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to do. We just have to give it the ingredients to do that.
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The V is for vascularization. And here they're talking about continuing to do
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any kind of cardiovascular-based activity, again, without causing pain or further
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exacerbating the injury.
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But we do anything that's going to increase blood flow to the area can be helpful
00:08:41.776 --> 00:08:44.826
for the healing process. So vascularization, that's what that refers to.
00:08:44.826 --> 00:08:47.742
So that might mean bumping up your movement slowly.
00:08:48.044 --> 00:08:53.916
I think it could also look like herbal foot soaks, just anything like that where
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you're going to be getting tissue.
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And this is not included in the peace and love protocol officially,
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but I like to think about from an herbal perspective, circulatory stimulants,
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things like that, that can get the blood flowing.
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Seems to me that fits in that category. And then lastly, exercise,
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coming back to mobility, strength, and so forth. And you want to.
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You want to take that active approach to recovery, which again may need to be
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guided by somebody who knows what they're doing.
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And that's where physical therapy or something similar to that may come into play.
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Okay, so that is peace and love in case you needed the updated version of rice
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for folks who have soft tissue injury.
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I do think that our topical herbal products and of course thinking about nutrient
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density from a nutrition standpoint when we are going through any kind of healing
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process, that nutrition, nutrient density is really important.
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So I'll just add those in there.
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I hope that's helpful. I'll put the blog post in the show notes in case you want to check it out.
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There's a nice handy graphic that you can show your clients if you want to put
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in the handout or something like that. So there you go.
00:10:01.814 --> 00:10:06.372
If you have any questions, let me know. And if you are not already getting my
00:10:06.372 --> 00:10:09.562
practitioner notes newsletter every Thursday, I would love to send that to you
00:10:09.562 --> 00:10:10.552
the next time it goes out.
00:10:11.220 --> 00:10:14.972
I send out just a little note, something about clinical practice,
00:10:14.972 --> 00:10:19.552
something I've noticed, any kind of notes from the field, so to speak,
00:10:19.552 --> 00:10:24.376
as well as three different resources each week that I think might be helpful.
00:10:24.498 --> 00:10:27.542
That might include recipes, it might include journal articles,
00:10:27.542 --> 00:10:30.882
it might include classes and workshops that people are doing,
00:10:30.882 --> 00:10:33.669
or anything else that's on my mind, a book I read that's really interesting,
00:10:34.070 --> 00:10:37.785
that sort of thing, as well as any upcoming events at Bloom and Grow that might be helpful for you.
00:10:38.104 --> 00:10:42.145
So you can sign up for that newsletter at camillefreeman.com or intheclinic.com.
00:10:42.354 --> 00:10:44.722
I'll put the link in the show notes to that as well in case you want to sign
00:10:44.722 --> 00:10:48.062
up I'd love to see you there Otherwise, thank you so much for all the work that
00:10:48.062 --> 00:10:51.363
you do I hope you have an amazing day and I will talk to you really soon.