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Question about cold plunges: I swore they were overhyped until my knee finally forced me to try
I messed up my right knee running the trails out at Rock Creek Park back in April and the ache hung around for almost 7 weeks. My physical therapist kept telling me to try cold water on it but I blew her off because it sounded like another wellness gimmick. After week 6 I finally caved and did 3 minutes in a 50 degree tub in my garage every night for 10 days. The swelling went down enough that I could walk the dog without limping, which nothing else had done. Has anyone else had a nagging joint thing that cold water actually helped, or did I just get lucky with the timing?
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quinn16112h ago
Knee injuries get better on their own all the time, that's just how bodies work. Seven weeks is right around when a mild sprain or strain would heal anyway, so the tub might have gotten credit for something time was already fixing. You also changed your routine, you were probably resting it more, maybe moving different, and that alone can drop swelling. Ten days of anything lining up with week 7 of recovery is a coin flip, not proof. If cold water was this magic fix for joints, every ortho in the country would hand out freezers instead of telling people to wait it out.
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