Rolled my ankle pretty badly playing basketball. Later that night it swelled up pretty big and was quite painful. RICE’d it for about a week and used a walking boot along with a pair of crutches that someone had. The edema eventually went down and left me with some pretty nasty looking bruising that also went away after a while. It’s been about a month. I can walk pain free and even jog lightly, but if I try to run (or worse sprint) there are some shooting pains at certain spots and just general weakness. There’s still a little bit of swelling just above and below the fibula, but it’s like a tough muscle-y knot as opposed to the edema from before.
My question is:
is a month fairly standard recovery time for a serious sprain?
what types of things should I be doing to help recover faster. Trying to decide between “staying off of it” and “exercising it to try to strengthen it”.
Not looking for medical opinion obviously (I’d just post this on a medical form if I were), but rather others’ experience with this type of injury.
I have seen a recommendation by an orthopedist that serious sprains need to be followed by physical therapy to prevent future problems. That’s all I know about this. Ask an orthopedist for details.
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Medical advice threads go in IMHO, even if you’re looking for other people’s anecdotes. I am moving this thread there from GQ.
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Ditto that it would be a good idea to see a doctor and preferably get a referral for physical therapy. IME, you can do PT-type exercises on your own, but a good PT will successfully walk the line between pushing you hard to regain function without causing more damage, allowing you to regain function as fully and quickly as possible. There are also some things they can do that you can’t do by yourself at home.
IMHO, IANAD, etc., a month is a SHORT time for a serious sprain. Ligament sprains take weeks at the bare minimum to months to heal (cite). Being almost acellular (mostly long protein strands with a few fibrocytes hanging out in between), they have little blood supply and long turnover times, and being constantly under load doesn’t help. Also, the initial healing that occurs isn’t final - some of the wrong type of collagen fiber is laid down, and sometimes in the wrong directions, and you need time and loading to guide things back to the proper composition and alignment, which is why rehab is important.
Good luck! BTDT with ankle sprains, and I know how hard it is to be patient.
You really ought to see a doctor - I went when pain in my ankle wasn’t going away after icing and compressing for several weeks. I had a bruised tendon, which was causing the pain, but more importantly I also had a painless stress fracture that would have gotten much worse if I’d kept running.
A month is a long time. However, if you were in intense pain at the time and can now walk and even jog lightly without pain, nothing is broken and it is healing on its own. This is just going to take more time. Totally different answer if you had not seen this improvement over the month.
A rolled ankle can pull a ligament off the bone, essentially a broken bone. I did that and continued to run on it and it healed regardless. Yes, the doctor said it would hurt longer, but still heal eventually. You may be in this boat yourself.
I sprained the hell out of my ankle right before Christmas 2003 and I think it was March before I was completely pain-free. It wasn’t a roll in my case, I caught my toe on the edge of the step and all my weight came down on my heel as my toe was still up on the step :eek: The problem I had from that was I couldn’t point my toes for ages, which made putting on socks/shoes and going down stairs a pain.
So yep, it can take months before it’s right again. Physical therapy might have helped but I don’t know if the shitty insurance I had then would have covered it anyway.
Similar deal here, right up to the timeframe. Rolled my ankle outward on New Year’s Eve 2003 and while I was walking quite well within about two weeks, I wouldn’t have been comfortable running and was still getting twinges up through March.
I never had PT, though I did have an X-ray the day after the injury to be assured nothing was broken. I would say that if you’re not happy with how it’s healing, you might be better off consulting an expert regarding the best treatment for your particular injury.
I give ballpark prognosis of 6-8 weeks for a mild sprain, 8-12 for a severe one.
It will take as long as it takes.
See a physiotherapist- joint position sense can be altered by a sprain, making future sprains more likely. Exercises help this.
You should see a Dr to assess whether your tender spots are in the places that indicate an Xray should be done to exclude fractures.
You’re not gonna strengthen it by doing more on it than normal. You should get some advice from your doctor. If you’re worried about exercise, swimming is for you. This will put the least amount of stress on you and if you REALLY swim laps (not just float) you can work up a high pulse rate. Swimming is excellent exercise and safe for those with bone problems.
Stretching is going to be the next important thing. You need to go to your library and get a book on Yoga and look at the exercises it recommend for the legs. Stretching is going to go a long way to helping the ankle heal.
Ice is better for any pain, but heat feels better, so if you must use heat, alternate between the two.
As one poster said, it’ll take as long as it takes and one thing is for certain if you rush it, it will take you twice as long
I had a pretty severe ripped ligament that took over a year to heal. I could walk ok within a couple days but no running on it for 6 months and even then pretty carefully. At about 14 months it seemed almost as strong as ever. I’m told ligaments are permanently weekened with severe injury.