One morning, a young office worker was carried rather unceremoniously in to my office over her workmate’s shoulder. She had caught her shoe in a tramline nearby that severely twisted her right ankle, on the way to work.
The joint was grossly swollen, darkly discolored - suggesting marked bleeding in the area - and weight-bearing was impossible. She had either broken a bone and/or ruptured a ligament or two. Even though she was very stoical, she was clearly in severe pain. An X-ray was essential to rule out a fracture, but, her stoicism won the day and she hobbled to work on crutches. She promised to return the next day for X-ray.
I spread some wheatgrass cream over what was now a grossly swollen joint and firmly bandaged her ankle, and lent her a pair of crutches because weight-bearing was out of the question.
Just three hours later, and to my amazement, she walked in, almost without a limp and returned the crutches! She was fully weight-bearing on her injured ankle!
Also, most of the swelling had disappeared! There was a touch of discolouration around the ankle, but I could now move the joint quite freely, evoking only a little pain – an impossible manoeuvre just a few hours earlier. When I suggested we do a precautionary X-ray, she politely refused on the grounds she had to return to work!
Sports injury therapists (and doctors), you, your patients and their club could all benefit from the accelerated recovery of many injuries by making good use of my wheatgrass extract. It is also in players' interests to apply wheatgrass BEFORE the game (at training as well) to help prevent injuries.
Providing there is no sign of fracture or serious injury, the swelling will often settle significantly in a few hours. Ice can only do more harm than good and should be avoided as it inhibits blood flow to the injury and slows recovery.
Whatever you do, do not apply ice to an injury.