Interestingly, common pain relieving gels which contain ibuprofen as an active ingredient also inhibit the inflammation response that is necessary for tissue growth and repair.

One thing that guides clinical practice is usually patient response, if patients feel like they are better or at least something is being done about pain relief then naturally this will guide practice and may be one of the reasons that this practice is so commonly quoted.

Else, there is very little we can truely do to gauge the response to injury. We simply do not have the equipment necessary to measure the inflammatory cytokines, and especially not the neurological response to injury, so in many cases we can not truly establish the best technique or method for acute post injury.