Ice Packs

My pleasure! I glad to have repaid you - lord knows i've collected many a pearl from you, my friend!

I thank you for that too, I think you wrote this down before on a post like this. I been keeping my ice packs because I'm literally out of ice packs.

Yes, I learned this from the other ice pack thread! Prior to the change, I was seeing 30-40(!!) ice pack visits a day. Now, the range is more like 10-20. I think it helps my overall numbers as (1) other students don't have that visual reminder that the health office exists, (2) students don't come just so they can parade around their ice pack, and (3) teachers may realize they can't just send students to the H/O with an "ice pack" order form. Not to mention, I have not lost a single ice pack since I implemented this. Before it, I had just lost 20 in a month!

One of my students asked about why students can't take them out of the office anymore and I told her, "ice packs don't help THAT much after those first five minutes. If I just send a student away with an ice pack, I can't tell if it really helped them or not, but if they sit here and wait, then we can decide together whether it's OK or not. This way, we are safer, plus we don't lose ice packs anymore. Can you imagine if you hurt your head badly and came here just to find out I was OUT of them?" I also have stopped using them on old bruises, old scrapes, or injuries without cause. (I know it's kind of bad that I ever did, but my school's staff--though great--say "just go get an ice pack" for EVERYTHING)

I'm going to have to start doing this. Last week a teacher said: blah, blah, blah..."I gave him an ice pack I had in my freezer" blah, blah, blah. I didn't hear anything after because my brain said, "Wait a minute...that's one of my ice packs...why are you keeping my ice packs?"

I don't have reusable ice packs, I have to make mine with ice cubes and ziplock bags. I usually put 1 cube in a snack size bag. I send the kids back to class and it doesn't last long. I should mention, I don't use regular ice cube trays, I only have a mini fridge, so it is those silicone ice trays which I have in heart shape and pumpkin shape, so truly these cubes are small. BUT it works well, as kids are not always too happy to get once scrappy ice cube! LOL

I do have instant ice packs for use for true big injuries.

I have gotten away from my standard wait-in-the-office approach and have been losing ice packs left and right. I will have to get back to it.

My excuse to the kids (and teachers) is that when we chart, we have to chart effect/outcome...how do I know the ice pack worked if the student leaves with it? Also, I try to impress upon the students that if the injury is bad enough for ice, it is bad enough to sit for 10 minutes. I think once word got around that ice means sitting still staring at the nurse my ice pack requests slowed down.

I been getting my ice packs back though, the ones that disappeared... they seem to be appearing in random places. I think by the end of the year I'll get them back.

I just hand out iced saltines and kill two birds with one cracker...

I don't have reusable ice packs, I have to make mine with ice cubes and ziplock bags. I usually put 1 cube in a snack size bag. I send the kids back to class and it doesn't last long. I should mention, I don't use regular ice cube trays, I only have a mini fridge, so it is those silicone ice trays which I have in heart shape and pumpkin shape, so truly these cubes are small. BUT it works well, as kids are not always too happy to get once scrappy ice cube! LOL

I do have instant ice packs for use for true big injuries.

I put ice in ziploc also. I put three cubes in if I'm feeling stingy, and four if I'm feeling generous. Now I'm thinking I should cut back, haha!

I just hand out iced saltines and kill two birds with one cracker...

Love this, lol!!!

I have started trying to teach students about when they need an ice pack. Every time I hand out an ice pack for an "Injured Extremity" I feel I have to protect myself, and my district from lawsuits by charting all the things that are not wrong with that extremity. Otherwise, after school student could get hurt, and parents could say it happened at school. But if I charted that the extremity was essentially fine at school-- their lawsuit goes away. I work in a big district that some parents look at as having deep pockets.

I have started telling student that their invisible injuries do not require and ice pack. Then I started telling them that muscle spasms are better fixed by being hydrated and giving them water to drink instead. Then I stick to my grounds because I do not want to be out of ice for the big injuries.

I am thinking of revising a chart I saw a social worker wearing. The chart was for figuring out how big a problem was so that the student's reaction to it would not be bigger than the problem itself. I am going to revise it into a do I really need ice scale, and start to teach them that every fleeting pain cannot be treated with ice.