A sprain, in Aajonus's framework, is a mechanical injury to the soft connective tissues surrounding a joint, specifically the tendons and ligaments, resulting from a tearing, ripping, crushing, or overstretching of those tissues. The injury causes immediate localized damage to the fibers, blood vessels, and surrounding tissue, releasing blood cells and fluids outside of their normal pathways into the surrounding tissue space.
Aajonus's Definition
A sprain, in Aajonus's framework, is a mechanical injury to the soft connective tissues surrounding a joint, specifically the tendons and ligaments, resulting from a tearing, ripping, crushing, or overstretching of those tissues. The injury causes immediate localized damage to the fibers, blood vessels, and surrounding tissue, releasing blood cells and fluids outside of their normal pathways into the surrounding tissue space.
He distinguishes between degrees of sprain severity: a simple sprain or stretch, a partial or full tear of a tendon or ligament from its attachment point (which he experienced personally when he ripped a tendon off the ankle and it "bubbled up like an egg at the bottom"), and the most severe, a crush injury, which he describes as far worse than a break or fracture, taking "five times, ten times longer to heal" because the structure of the tendon and ligament fibers is compressed and compacted rather than simply pulled apart.
He explicitly describes the body's response to a sprain as intelligent and purposeful: increased blood flow, swelling, nutrient delivery, and biological activity in the area are all part of the body's natural repair mechanism. The body is doing exactly what it should. The condition is not the problem. Interference with that process is the problem.
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Root Cause
In Aajonus's framework, the root cause of the damage that occurs in a sprain is the mechanical force itself, a fall, a collision, a sudden twisting or bearing of weight in the wrong direction. However, he makes an important qualifier: for relatively minor sprains (as opposed to being hit by a vehicle or motorcycle), the severity of injury can be worsened or predisposed by toxicity in the local tissue.
He states: "You can only get an injury if it's a light injury and you get harmed because there are toxins in that area. If you get hit by a car, it doesn't have to be a toxic area, you get a bad injury."
This means that in cases of everyday sprains not caused by extreme force, the presence of stored toxins in the local tendons, ligaments, muscles, and connective tissue makes those tissues less elastic, more brittle, and more prone to damage under stress. Proper diet with adequate raw fats, raw proteins, and raw minerals keeps tissues elastic, well-lubricated, and more resistant to mechanical injury.
The complications that develop after a sprain, scarring, chronic pain, reduced mobility, repeated injury, are caused not by the sprain itself but by improper treatment, specifically the application of ice, compression bandages, and cortisone injections, which arrest the body's natural healing process and cause scar tissue to form in the place where healthy tissue should regrow.
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Why This Happens
This condition fits primarily under:
Root Cause / Terrain Theory, because the severity of a sprain is influenced by the toxicity and nutritional state of the local tissue.
How to Live / Sovereignty, because the vast majority of Aajonus's teaching on sprains is directed against the conventional medical intervention protocol (ice, compression, cortisone, surgery) and toward the individual's right and ability to heal themselves outside the medical system.
Detoxification, because the swelling, bruising, and the movement of damaged tissue through the body following a sprain are all detoxification processes that must be allowed to proceed unimpeded.
Raw Food, because the application of raw foods directly to the sprained area (raw steak, raw leek liniment, raw coconut cream, lime juice, honey, butter) is the active healing protocol.
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Symptoms Reframed
This is the single most important symptom reframe Aajonus makes, and he returns to it repeatedly and emphatically throughout his teachings. Swelling after a sprain is not a problem. It is not dangerous. It is not something to be reduced or stopped. It is the body's deliberate, intelligent, purposeful response to injury.
He explains: "The body swells because it's putting more blood and lymph into the area to clean it and to heal it." The swelling represents an enormous mobilization of resources: blood, lymph, neurological fluids, nutrients, enzymes, and the biological agents needed to break down damaged cells and remove them, and to stimulate and support rapid cell reproduction in the injured tissue.
He states directly: "You always want swelling. You never want to stop swelling."
He further explains: "What is the reason for swelling? They have damaged tissue in an area that needs more circulation of blood, of lymph, of neurological fluids, all in that area to feed that area, to break down the damaged cells and remove them, and to heal, to help cells reproduce fast. If you don't have that swelling, there is no proper healing."
He is unequivocal: "The most stupid, insane thing in the world is to put ice on an injury. You won't heal, you're going to scar. It's insane."
Pain in a sprain arises from pressure on nerves in a tense area. The tendons, ligaments, muscles, and surrounding tissues are tight and contracted. This tightness creates pressure on the nerves passing through or near the injured area. He says: "Pain comes from pressure being put on things that aren't relaxed. So you've got some tight tendons there, ligaments. What happens? The pressure in there, not just on the tendons and the ligaments, but the actual muscle and the nerves, all that pressure is pressing against everything and there's the pain."
Heat addresses this by relaxing all the tissues: "If you apply heat, everything relaxes and it can allow for expansion, all that nutrients coming in." He notes that "usually 85% of pain is relieved within 15 minutes of heat application," though he also notes that sometimes "tendons, cartilage and ligaments take 5-15 minutes to relax and pain may temporarily increase until those tissues relax and expand."
Bruising following a sprain is the visible sign of blood cells that have escaped the bloodstream into the surrounding tissue. He explains: "That's red blood cells that are not in the bloodstream. They will turn black as they decay." The bruise changes color, blue to black to yellow, as the body's bacteria break down the dead red blood cells into liquid form so they can pass through the skin. "Yellow are the dead red blood cells dissolved into a liquid to pass through the skin. So, whenever it goes through those stages, you know your body's healing itself."
When a tendon is completely ripped from its attachment point, it recoils and creates a visible lump or ball under the skin. He describes experiencing this directly in both his motorcycle accident in Thailand and when he tore his ankle tendon before going to the British American Drama Academy at Stanford. In both cases the tendon "bubbled up like an egg." In the Thailand case, tendons on both sides of the knee were simultaneously torn in opposite directions, creating lumps the size of golf balls on both sides. Despite this, he observed the tendons growing back within one week, watching them reconnect. "In one week I saw them grow back."
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Food Protocol
Ingredients: - Juice of 1 leek - 1 tablespoon fresh raw ginger root (juiced or blended and strained)
Mixed with one of the following fat carriers: - 4 tablespoons raw coconut cream, OR - Unheated-above-96°F fermented coconut oil, OR - Peanut oil, OR - Olive oil
Application: Apply this liniment directly to the sprained area. Then apply warm compresses over the top of it. Warmth is critical, it increases circulation and healing. Cold compresses reduce circulation and healing.
Method for warming the steak: Place the sliced raw steak in a closed glass jar and immerse the jar in a hot bowl of water. The water should be hot but "not too hot." This warms the steak to a comfortable temperature without cooking it or heating it above the safe threshold that would begin to damage the enzymes and proteins.
He references this in connection with his own injuries: "I put lime juice on it two times in two days, and right after I put the lime juice on it, I put coconut cream, honey, and on the spaces where there was no muscle, not just skin gone, I put very thin slices of meat. The other areas, I wet the gauze with coconut cream until it was very wet, put butter on top of that so it wouldn't stick."
He describes putting steak on his severely injured shoulder/bursa area: "I put the steak on. Twenty minutes of pain was gone and I slept for about four hours."
He notes: "I put lime juice on it, and right after I put the lime juice on it, I put coconut cream."
Hot water bottle: The primary heat delivery method. He specifies hot water bottles repeatedly and explicitly. He states: "If you want to heal anything, if you've got pain anywhere, heat is your element and not an electrical heat pad either, because that is an EMF field anywhere from 75 to 200 milligals. It takes 3 milligals to alter the molecular structure of a human or an animal cell into something destructive or damaging. So use hot water bottles."
Even improvised hot water bottles work: "I don't care if you put hot water in a glass and wrap it with a towel. That can be your hot water bottle."
He explicitly warns against heating pads, electric heat sources, and any EMF-generating heat device because the electromagnetic field destroys the molecular structure of cells.
Hot baths: Used extensively during his own recovery from severe leg injury. He states he was in a hot bath for hours per day, that it "always held my pain within 20 minutes." He used a bath with coconut cream added to the water (as raw milk was unavailable in Thailand at the time). He states: "I was in it for hours a day trying to get rid of pain and it did."
Hot springs: He visited hot springs regularly during his recovery from the motorcycle accident in Thailand and the Philippines when recovering from subsequent toxic discharges through the legs.
Soaking formula: He specifically describes soaking feet and legs at 105°F in hot water with 2 ounces coconut cream and 3 ounces raw milk, for up to 4 continuous hours per day on consecutive days.
Swimming pool exercise: He obtained the owner of his hotel's permission to turn off chlorination to the pool for five days so he could use the pool for gentle movement therapy, walking in the deep end to keep the leg from atrophying. This was followed by ocean swimming/walking for six weeks.
During his own recovery from severe knee/leg injury, he consumed: - Raw eggs - Raw meat (very fine slices, cut by helpers when he could not cut them himself) - Unsalted raw butter, up to ½ pound per day during the acute phase - Honey mixed with butter (butter/honey mixture consumed every 2–4 hours during the first 36 hours of acute injury) - 3-inch sections of banana eaten alongside butter/honey and meat during the acute phase - Raw milk (when available) - Coconut cream (in Thailand, used as substitute for raw milk)
For tendon/ligament scarring specifically, he recommends a pineapple protocol: - Every 7 days, a three-day cycle of approximately 4 ounces of pineapple (described as "about almost a half-inch thick circular slice") eaten with either whipped cream or coconut cream - Purpose: to break down scarring in tendons so cells can rebuild. "Unless some of that scarring is removed, you're not going to be able to build cells in there. We need to get those tendons expanded as soon as possible."
For bursitis-related sprain/injury (shoulder), he increased chicken consumption, eating chicken first in the morning instead of beef.
He also states: "If you've got a bleed somewhere, wait until the bleeding stops. Drink some green cabbage juice. Half to a whole cup, your bleeding will stop like that. And then you put the heat on it."
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What to Avoid
- i
Aajonus's condemnation of ice on sprains and injuries is among the most emphatic and repeated teachings in his entire body of work. He states it multiple times, in multiple workshops, in his newsletters, and in his book.
- ii
"The most stupid, insane thing in the world is to put ice on an injury. You won't heal, you're going to scar. It's insane."
- iii
"Never freeze a swollen area."
- iv
"You always apply heat. You increase the circulation to that area and let the area relax."
- v
"Don't use ice, except if it's just to numb the pain for a minute."
- vi
The mechanism he describes for why ice is harmful: when ice is applied, it stops circulation to the area. The enormous flow of blood, lymph, neurological fluids, and nutrients that the body is directing to the injury site is arrested. The fluids that were already in the area clot. Damaged and dead cells that should be cleared out remain. Cell reproduction cannot occur without nutrients. The result is: "They clot. They don't heal properly." The dead cells that are trapped become mummified, scar tissue. "Scarring is dead mummified cells that are useless for creating energy and activity. Dead cells are dead bricks in the walls. Scar tissue reduces flexibility, agility and stamina."
- vii
He specifically calls out athletes' use of ice as the primary reason their careers end prematurely: "Most athletes who sustain an injury apply ice packs to reduce swelling and numb pain. They never heal properly and sustain multiple injuries to the same area. Many athletes' careers end because of such improperly cleansed and poorly healed injuries. Besides poor diets, their careers are cut short by the application of ice packs."
- viii
He also calls out nitrogen spray freezing: "For the sprays that they use, they use sprays. Yes, they use that too. Like nitrogen sprays to freeze the area. That stops the blood flow. It causes dehydration in the area because the body gets rid of the fluids because it's trying to warm the area. So what happens? You scar in that area. You don't heal properly."
- ix
He explicitly warns against wrapping a sprained area with pressure bandages (Ace bandages or foam pressure devices). When a patient's doctor prescribed foam pressure devices for a crushed ankle/tendon/ligament injury, Aajonus said: "You use those. She's not going to get any circulation to that leg. She's going to have scarring in there. It's not going to be mobile anymore as well as it was. And you're going to deteriorate the condition. You're going to cause scarring. But that's what the doctor would do. Because then you keep going back into therapy, you know, physical therapy to clean all the scarring that you caused by using the pressure bandages."
- x
He also says regarding pressure in general: "Don't bind it. You want it to stay relaxed so the nutrients can get in there."
- xi
He specifically names cortisone injections as part of the harmful athletic injury protocol: ice packs to reduce swelling, compression wrap, cortisone injection, and sending the athlete back onto the field. He describes the long-term outcome: "What happens in five years is his knee's gone. Four, five, six operations and surgeries, and finally when he's an old man, the only thing he can do and an old man for an athlete, this is 45, 47 years old, he's got a knee transplant. Which means he's got a piece of plastic put in his knee."
- xii
He explicitly distinguishes between hot water bottles (which he recommends) and electric heating pads (which he forbids). The reason: "You have an EMF field anywhere from 75 to 200 milligals. It takes 3 milligals to alter the molecular structure of a human or an animal cell into something destructive or damaging." Electric heating pads therefore damage cells at the molecular level even while providing warmth. Always use hot water bottles, not electric pads.
- xiii
He repeatedly describes being pressured by orthopedic surgeons to undergo surgery for his sprained/ruptured tendons and split tibia, and repeatedly refused. He says: "I've seen people who've been through that kind of accident because a lot of motorcycle riders in Asia, and there's a lot of accidents like that. And I've seen the surgeries. They've lost two or three inches of that leg from it and they're, you know, they're people who go around like this." He also observed that patients who underwent the surgery he was offered lost: one to two inches of leg length, two-thirds of their calf muscle size, all the cartilage in the joint, and were permanently disabled.
- xiv
He did allow two X-rays (minimum exposure, at the lowest possible radiation setting, for the shortest possible millisecond duration) solely to confirm the bones were positioned correctly, not for treatment purposes. Once confirmed that the bones were in proper alignment despite all the damage, he left the hospital without surgery.
- xv
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Recovery Timeline
Aajonus provides several specific recovery timelines from his own experience:
He notes: "I was in a wheelchair for just a week, on crutches for six weeks. That's it. I was running without it. No scarring."
He attributes this speed of healing entirely to diet and heat: "That's how well you can heal if you're on a good diet."
He also describes the body creating its own natural cast: "Within four days after the accident, all the muscle disappeared. So I just had skin laying on top of this bone here, and it had taken all of that nutrients in the muscle and made this cast, cast from here all the way down to the foot, to the toes. I mean, a hard... if you touch this now, you'll see there's a cast still around the knee." This natural cast was still present at 10 weeks, though healing was advanced.
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Questions Aajonus Answered
- Q: Sprained Ankle (Feb 22 / Mar 5, 2002, from email correspondence)
Question: "I sprained my ankle on Saturday and applied a hot water bottle to it for a period in the day and again at night. Is there anything else I should do to help the recovery? Should I continue with the heat daily?"
Aajonus's Response (from the email archives, partially reproduced): "I suggest that you apply a hot water bottle as often and for as long as possible."
(The complete continuation of the response is not fully reproduced in the available passages, but the direction is clear from context: apply heat as continuously and as long as possible, and the reference to heat being the primary instrument is explicit.)
- Q (Workshop, athlete with knee injury, general):
A workshop attendee asked about what to do for a knee injury where there is swelling.
Aajonus: "You always want swelling. You never want to stop swelling. People put ice packs on things, and what do they do? They prevent the circulation. All of those many nutrients are being moved into that area to clean out and feed the area and heal it. They put ice packs on it, what happens? It clots. They don't heal properly."
He then described the athlete scenario: ice packs, compression, cortisone, back on the field. "What happens in five years is his knee's gone."
- Q (Workshop, woman with crushed ankle):
The woman's family insisted on taking her to a doctor. The doctor diagnosed: worse than a break or fracture, crushed ligaments and tendons, and prescribed foam pressure wraps. The woman called Aajonus from outside the doctor's office.
Aajonus: "You use those [pressure wraps]. She's not going to get any circulation to that leg. She's going to have scarring in there. It's not going to be mobile anymore as well as it was. And you're going to deteriorate the condition. You're going to cause scarring." He noted the doctor charged $300 to confirm what he had told her for free in 10 minutes.
He said the rash that subsequently emerged through the skin on the opposite leg (not even the injured leg) demonstrated "how her body is discarding it", the crushed tissue toxins being expelled through the skin. He guided the patient on lime juice topically, walking only on the ball of the foot (not heel-to-toe), and the use of crutches, and showed photos at 27 days indicating clear healing progress.
- Q (Workshop, regarding pineapple and tendon scarring):
A workshop attendee appeared to have long-standing tendon/ligament issues (right wrist and right knee). The person described it as "feels more like a ligament that's..." (description trails off in the transcript).
Aajonus: "About every seven days, I like to go through a three-day cycle of having pineapple with either whipped cream or coconut cream. How much pineapple? About four ounces. So it's about maybe almost a half-inch thick circular slice."
When asked what it was for: "I hope that's going to help break down some of the scarring in the tendons so you can start rebuilding cells in there right away. Because unless some of that scarring is removed, you're not going to be able to build cells in there. We need to get those tendons expanded as soon as possible."
- Q (Workshop, someone asking about icing vs. heat for acute injury):
Aajonus: "They say to put heat on it, everything they say to do, do the opposite. Literally. Because what happens to those people who ice a wound? They stop swelling. What is the reason for swelling? They have damaged tissue in an area that needs more circulation of blood, of lymph, of neurological fluids, all in that area to feed that area, to break down the damaged cells and remove them, and to heal, to help cells reproduce fast. If you don't have that swelling, there is no proper healing. So what happens? These athletes ice things. They're getting surgery after surgery, one to a year, to scrape the scar tissue out. Because they've stopped the swelling, they've stopped the normal flow of nutrition into that area so that they can clean that area and get well."
- Q (Workshop, tendon healing observations from his own body):
Aajonus, describing watching his own torn tendons regrow after the Thailand accident: "I had more pain from those tendons being ripped than the bone being broken. I had the most pain right here and right here from where it was ripped. So the tendons, fats and muscles attached to the bones at the ends, at the joint areas, sometimes they'll be injured. They grew back together in a week. I watched them. They were bubbled up here and here, and in one week I saw them grow back. The pain didn't stop where they had been ripped, but I just watched them grow back."
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How this condition connects to the rest of the platform
Terrain Theory, and Raw Food.