Over-Icing Leads to Frostbite

Well, I did something stupid today. My knee hurt so I pulled out an ice pack and I iced it like I’ve done hundreds of times before. I even thought of how some people have received frost bite from icing their legs (even getting black skin that peeled off) so I made sure to only do it for 15 minutes.

When I pulled off the ice pack I immediately knew something was wrong because I had white spots around my knee and on touching them I could feel that they were spots that were frozen solid. <freak out!> I did start freaking out so I warmed up my leg with my hands and after the skin, put the heating pad on it, then thought it might be okay. I stood up to go make some food and noticed that my knee was now swollen. I then noticed my knee was getting swollen where it was frozen.

I talked to Dr. Holli, my girlfriend and doctor, and she said to get in a warm bath. That’s when my leg looked the worst! In addition to the swelling it was looking purple. Prognosis from Holli is that it looks like second degree frostbite.

Now 3 hours later my leg feels pretty good and the swelling is down but it looks like I have a bad birth mark. The doc says it may turn purple or black over the next 2 weeks, which I’m not too excited for. Hopefully it won’t ’cause that could turn out to be really bad.

Lessons learned

1. Always put something between your leg and the ice
2. Ice packs might be a lot colder for longer than just ice in a plastic baggie
3. I probably don’t need to ice past the point of going numb
4. Frostbite isn’t funny…

All I have to say is be careful and maybe I shouldn’t do ice baths either!

Jared