Sam Rattu - Integrative Physiotherapist
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Director / Principal Physiotherapist for Kiome Wellness Group Telehealth services with Medicare, private health insurance rebates, DVA and NDIS clients.
Holistic Physiotherapist providing physiotherapy services for Neurological, Musculoskeletal and Sporting injuries and illnesses.
22/09/2026
Rolled an ankle or tweaked a muscle this week? That ice pack might not be doing what you think.
For decades the advice was RICE: rest, ice, compression, elevation. Here's where the research sits now 👇
Ice can take the edge off pain in the first few days. That's real, and it's cheap.
What it hasn't been shown to do is speed up healing. A 2024 review in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that almost all the research on ice and tissue healing has been done in animals. There's some concern it may slow repair after bigger injuries, but that evidence is mostly from animals too.
So ice isn't the enemy. It just isn't the treatment.
What current guidance puts first:
1️⃣ Early, gentle movement. Weight-bear as comfort allows and build up over days, not weeks.
2️⃣ Protect and support. Compression or a brace for the first few days, elevate when you can, and know roughly how long your recovery should take.
If ice helps you move more comfortably, use it: 10–15 minutes, with a cloth between the ice and your skin.
⚠️ Get assessed promptly if:
- you can't take four steps on it
- there's pain directly on the bone
- the joint looks out of shape
- you have numbness or pins and needles
- swelling comes up fast and severe
Not sure how to load an injury in the first week? That's exactly what we assess at Kiome Wellness Group in East Melbourne. Book at www.kiome.au.
Save this for the next time someone reaches for the frozen peas 🧊
Magnesium for sleep: what the latest research says about magnesium glycinate, magnesium threonate and insomnia.
Here's what the trials actually found.
THE RESEARCH
→ A meta-analysis pooled 3 small trials in 151 older adults. People fell asleep ~17 minutes faster, but total sleep time didn't significantly change. Evidence quality: low to very low. (Mah & Pitre, BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, 2021)
→ A 2025 trial gave 155 adults magnesium bisglycinate for 4 weeks. Insomnia scores improved slightly more than placebo, but the effect was small and no other sleep measure differed. (Schuster et al., Nature and Science of Sleep, 2025)
→ Magnesium L-threonate has two trials that disagree. One found better sleep-tracker scores (Hausenblas et al., Sleep Medicine: X, 2024). A larger follow-up found no difference in tracker data (Lopresti & Smith, Frontiers in Nutrition, 2026).
→ Broader reviews describe the results as mixed and the studies as small and short. (Arab et al., Biological Trace Element Research, 2023; Rawji et al., Cureus, 2024)
WHAT'S MISSING
No trial has compared magnesium forms head to head for sleep. Studies ran 2–8 weeks, relied on questionnaires or wearables, and none enrolled people with diagnosed insomnia.
THE VERDICT
Small effect. Low certainty. The clearest signal is in people who get less magnesium from food (Rawji 2024; Schuster 2025). Nuts, seeds, legumes, leafy greens and wholegrains are the place to start.
BEFORE YOU TRY IT
Speak with your GP or pharmacist first, especially if you have kidney disease or take certain antibiotics or osteoporosis medication. The Australian upper limit for magnesium from supplements is 350 mg a day.
Loud snoring, pauses in breathing at night, or trouble sleeping for 3+ months need a proper assessment, not a supplement. The recommended first-line treatment for chronic insomnia is CBT-I.
Save this for the next time someone swears by magnesium.
General education only, not personal advice.
Which is the best pillow to buy?
Short Answer.......there isn't one.
Research says get a latex or rubber one for reducing neck pain.
My clients tell me the $10 Kmart fluff is better, others say the hundreds of dollars orthopaedic pillow is better.
My advice is consider this:
- what the pillow is made of from a toxins perspective?
- how big are you - this may dictate the firmness or size you want. Bigger human = bigger pillow viva versa
- trial and error - go for something affordable first or has a return policy
Pillows are probably the most nuanced device that I encounter for personal preference.
Your Body In Spring: Part 2/8
As we start to transition out of Winter here in the Southern Hemisphere, what we start to immediately notice is the changing light story. Earlier sun rises and later sunsets, this is the main signal to our circadian biology to get moving.
As you feel happier due to warmer weather and better light conditions, naturally the cue is to move. Spring is a great time to start a walking habit again, go the park and sit on some grass, get to the beach or go for a hike.
Just remember to slowly start up your movement again, I see loads of injuries come through in spring as people start to move more again.
Are you a spring, summer, winter or autumn person?
13/06/2025
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