YOU twist your ankle during a basketball pick-up game and what do you do next? It's either you roll the foot on a soft-drink bottle, or visit your neighborhood hilot, right?
If you're still doing this, better read on.
According to top orthopedic surgeon Jose Raul Canlas, rolling your foot on a bottle after suffering a sprain - a process known as rolling pin technique - and the soft massage or joint manipulation done by a hilot on the injured joint or muscle can DEFINITELY help in the healing process.
But - and this is a big but - these two techniques should be done on the injured joint or muscle much LATER in the healing process and not immediately after suffering the injury. Otherwise, these will do more harm than good.
Canlas said the first thing you should do after suffering an ankle sprain or a muscle injury is to try and minimize the swelling. To do that, you should ice the injured joint or muscle, elevate it and later immobilize it.
Once a sprained ankle has become more functional after several days’ rest and the swelling has gone down, a manghihilot’s massage – so long as it's not extreme – can help improve the range of motion of the injured area.
The same goes for the age-old practice of rolling your sprained foot over a soft drink bottle. Rolling pins are still very much in use in the treatment of sprains in modern sports medicine, but the sessions should come later in the rehabilitation process.
As for muscle injuries, it really depends on where the injury is. Soft tissue massage is effective in the treatment of back spasms. But if you’re treating a muscle strain, say, in the calf area, a manghihilot’s soft massage is not advisable at the early stage but much later on.
So how about the coconut oil, garlic, and various herbs which a manghihilot often applies to the injured areas at the end of the treatment?
Canlas said there is no scientific study that says these substances can help heal the injury. But what is known is that these substances all provide warmth which, in turn, brings relief. He said it’s no different from liniment, which relieves the pain and enlarges the blood vessels enough to absorb the fluid and bring down the swelling.
So if you had just suffered a sprain or a muscle strain, Canlas' advice is to stick to the universally accepted form of treatment, summed up as RICE – rest, ice, compression, elevate. Rest it, ice it, compress it with elastic bandages and then elevate it. Then you might want to take some anti-inflammatory medicine.
Once the swelling has gone down and the injury is starting to recover its range of movement, it's all right to give your neighborhood hilot a visit.
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