Hehe, I feel your pain
The ice is your best friend. (I know you won't think this when you're using it.) You may need to see a doctor, depending upon the severity of your muscle strain. Grade I involves a cramp or pull of the muscle fibers, Grade II is characterized by small to moderate amount of muscle tearing (macrotrauma) and Grade III involves the tearing of a large number of muscle fibers. Here's the solutions, (that I know of): (From the listing of favorable to least favorable.)
1.) Rest: Yes, this is the key to successful recovery. Cumulative macrotrauma isn't a good thing for the body.
2.) Herbal Therapy: A variety of categories of herbs help out injuries, including vulnaries, rubefacients, and anti-inflammatories. All these reduce edema (swelling). Recovery simply cannot occur in anything until swelling has gone down. In many cases, low dosages of these herbs work as well as high dosages.
3.) Diathermy: A high frequency form of heat which can penetrate as deep as 2 1/2 inches into injured tissue. Administered by a chiropractor or physical therapist, diathermy promotes circulation to the injured site.
4.) Electro-stimulation: Moderate amounts of intermittent electrostimulation directly to the injured tendinous area for 10-15 minutes per session.
5.) Cryo-therapy: Take crushed ice and put it in a zip-lock bag. Cryo-therapy is very beneficial to reducing edema, pain, and pumping muscular tissues free of accumulated waste. It's important while on ice to MOVE the bodypart around. Static fixation is counter-productive to the healing process. Spend at least 15 minutes on the ice, but no more than 20. Some therapists believe so strongly in ice therapy they say do it once every hour for 15 minutes.
6.) Corticosteroids: Administered by injection to the injured site, they reduce inflammation and pain. The drawback is that these agents cause a breakdown of collagenous and ligamentous tissue after repeated injections.
7.) Proliferate-Injection Therapy: This is injected directly to the injured site, causing an "artificial injury", which then provokes the collagenous cells to begin restructuring themselves more quickly.
8.) Surgery: What we all hope to avoid after the massive amounts of damage we do to our bodies.
Michael Ryan
Motto: Question nothing, accept everything, believe it when you see a 24 year old Soke.