Wednesday, April 2, 2008

(Too much) Ice Ice Baby

This could just as easily be titled "Burn Baby Burn." It was very easy to give myself frostbite on my knee. In 60 degree weather. Inside. With an ice pack. It resulted in a big burn on my knee that hurts like a sonofabitch! How in the world, after so many times of icing my knee after activity, did I do this? Dunno. Maybe by using a different type of ice pack instead of my usual frozen corn. Maybe by strapping it on so it wouldn't fall off. It wasn't by using it for longer than normal, it was just too cold. I removed it and I knew immediately I had over-iced.

After it thawed out (yes, my skin was actually white and frozen and ew I don't want to go into any more detail or even think about it and I didn't even tell anyone else about that part) it looked like a bad sunburn. All red, hot, raised. I thought possibly that it would blister and drip but so far the skin isn't broken at all. It's just all ugly and sore. I didn't just manage to get a small area either, it's about a 4 inch circle.

So I tried to find out how to treat an ice burn. I did a web search and discovered it's very easy to burn yourself with ice. Duh. You shouldn't leave it on too long. Double duh. You can hurt yourself badly. Well, why do you think I'm looking for a remedy!?! The one place that actually looked like it might have good advice instead just said something to the effect of "you're pretty damn dumb to burn yourself with an ice pack so don't do it again." Yeaaaaah, very helpful. I'm just going to have to live with the burn. It's not like I can cool it off with ice, right?

The reason I was icing in the first place is that I got up early yesterday and treadmilled. I ran:walked 9:1 with a bit of elevation on the 'mill. I made it through my 3 repeats with no shooting pain, but my knee was sore afterward. Swimming the night before with Sandy also added some aches and pains.

So it looks like I'm continuing with my twice daily workouts on some days, even though I'm losing sleep. I'm only doing legsercises once daily, if that. I'm very enthusiastic about doing activities I enjoy like running, cycling, swimming. I'm not feeling the love for rehab that isn't making my knee feel any better.

Three weeks until the half. Will I be able to run or walk it? Good question. At least the burn should be gone by then!

2 comments:

  1. did your burn ever go away?? i did the same thing and now i'm worried the red mark is permanent.

    thanks!
    amy

    ReplyDelete
  2. Yes it did! You'd never know that I'd done such a dumb thing. I hope yours heals up as well, just give it (a lot of) time.

    ReplyDelete