I recently sprained my ankle, can anyone suggest any rehab techniques and timetables? I am really anxious to get back on my bicycle and doing yoga, but I do not want to do damage to something that is already damaged. Please advise>:confused:
I’m still recovering from a bad one nearly a month and a half afterwards. It’s just about healed now, and the swelling is almost gone. For the first couple weeks, you really need to take it easy on it. Give the torn ligaments and/or tendons time to knit themselves back together. Keeping heat on it will help the stiffness, while ice will help the swelling. I found the stiffness to be more uncomfortable, so I used a heating pad, but YMMV. Aspirin may also help ease the swelling, but you should consult a doctor aboat this first. Once you can walk on it comfortably, you can start to excercise it, but don’t push it, initially. Good luck!
I sprained my ankle 16 months ago and it’s still swollen. I can walk and jog pain free but and hard lateral movement like tennis causes problems. I never went through rehab so that’s probably why it never healed properly. I was on crutches for about a week and was useing an ace bandage or an ankle support for about 3 months after the injury.
As a long-time volleyballer, I’ve had many ankle sprains, some worse than others.
Immediate treatment should involve the old RICE method - rest it, apply ice to it, compress it with bandages and keep it elevated.
After a few days, start on mobility exercises. Lying down, with your legs stretched out, point your toes away from you then point them towards you (I hope this makes sense).
Do small stretches on your calves. An easy way to do this is to stand facing a wall and position your feet so your toes are about an inch or two away from the wall. Put your forehead on the wall. This puts your body at a slight lean. It gives your calves a small stretch without aggravating the injury. As time goes on, you can progress to moving your feet further and further away from the wall.
Once that loses its efficacy, do the same exercise, but this time have a small object under your toes (eg a paperback). As you get better at this, increase the size of the object. Eventually you can do this exercise by standing on a step with your heel hanging off the edge.
Do the toe-pointing/flexing exercise on your back, this time put your leg up in the air and loop a towel around your toes. Do the point-flex exercise using the towel to provide resistance.
Once you’ve recovered from the injury (this could take a long time, as others have pointed out), the best thing to do is work on strengthening the ankle. A balance ball will help you with this. So will walking on tip-toes. Ditto walking on your heels. Any ankle injury will affect your balance. Fixing your balance goes a long way to preventing future ankle injuries.
If you plan to resume sporting activities that put your ankle at rist, I suggest firm strapping to start with. I use an Active Ankle device which has been very effective at preventing reinjury. Note that the AA device, and ones like it, can put stress on your knee joints. Don’t rush into the grand finals wearing one of these if you’ve never worn one before. Become used to wearing it and let your body learn how to counter the side-effects of its use.
I hope your ankle feels better soon.
Max.
Oh, as for physiotherapy - DO IT! I didn’t do it on my first ankle sprain and regret it every time I step on court.
My physio uses a combination of strengthening exercises, ice therapy, ultrasound and electro-zapping (I don’t know what it’s called, sorry - electrodes placed on the affected area and the muscles stimulated). It is very effective. In one situation where I sprained my ankle three weeks ahead of a big tournament, she was able to get me back on court for that comp. I visited her twice a week and don’t regret a cent I spent on it.
Max.
I sprained my ankle badly about 7 1/2 weeks ago. Still hurts, it gets a little bit swollen sometimes, but it’s mostly a stiffness pain. I dont think I rested it enough at the start, the stupid doctor I saw didnt give me crutches just said do the RISE thing but never said not to put any weight on it for the first 2 days. They didnt ever x-ray it ever though it was swollen up like a balloon at the time. I hope it heels ok.
Good luck with your sprain, I know how it feels!