What’s The Latest Thinking About Cold Hosing?
Properly applied cold therapy can aid healing and reduce discomfort. But its important to follow treatment guidelines.
Question Ive read a lot lately about how ice therapy may not be as beneficial for sports injuries as weve thought. Some studies suggest it may even delay healing. Is there similar equine research? I regularly cold hose my horses legs after a workout to help him recover. Should I stop doing that? What about treating using ice to treat an injury like a pulled tendon?
Answer This is a great question. Cold therapy also known as cryotherapy is a controversial subject in the human sports medicine literature. If you are inclined you can look up some very nice reviews on this subject. These include Kweicien et al. 2021 The cold truth the role of cryotherapy in the treatment of injury and recovery from exercise and Long et al 2020 21st Century Attacks on Cryotherapy in Sports Health CareClinician Beware You are correct that there are some sports medicine practitioners that are not recommending ice therapy for people now.
Those who are worried that cold therapy can delay healing are typically concerned with two issues
Blunting of the inflammatory reaction may prevent the positive effects of inflammation. These are namely removal of damaged tissue and stimulation of healing due to vascular constriction
Low temperature itself can result in tissue or nerve death. This is likely true for cryotherapy of any kind for very prolonged periods of time at very low temperatures.
Cold therapy can reduce inflammation and associated discomfort. Getty Images
As for scientific evidence to address these concerns there are results in animalsmostly rats and micedemonstrating certain types of cryotherapy may delay healing. A study also suggests that a small percentage of horses undergoing cryotherapy with a sleevestyle unit with ice
