Sprains and advancing age

I have noted in a thread in IMHO that I struck my bare foot (the instep) against the front stub of a rocker of a rocking chair–damn painful. No fracture, fortunately; just a “bad sprain,” as the doctor called it after a close look at the X-ray. Two weeks have passed since this mishap. I’m 67; the pain is fading. Is this about average for a sprain at my age?

Moderator Action

Medical issues are best suited to IMHO.

Moving thread from General Questions to In My Humble Opinion.

I’m an engineer, not a doctor, but I know there are some things that affect healing rates.

Do you have diabetes or bad circulation or any other condition that might affect how quickly you heal?

Hope you get better soon.

I’m not sure about someone that is 67. I’m 55 myself.

I have severely sprained ankles though when I was in my 30’s. Vollyball each time.

It took weeks to not hobble. But, It was severely sprained. Purple toes from blood leeching out of the damage.

According to my doctor’s diagnosis a few years ago, I have diabetes 2.
It is fading. Thanks, Engineer. :slight_smile:

I don’t think you can sprain your instep. Perhaps you just bruised it?

Muscle cramps are a symptom of Kidney Disease (aka Kidney Failure).

But, if it were kidney disease, you would have gotten many more symptoms before “cramps”.

If it were actually a sprain, which I doubt, most such take 4 to 8 weeks to heal, and bad ones require splinting and sometimes surgery. Simple bruising should resolve within a week, but deep bruising can sometimes take a very long time to completely resolve. A minor injury resolving in 2 weeks sounds fine at any age.

Well, my M.D. calls them as he sees them. I even looked at the X-ray of the bones in my right foot myself. I decided I could take his word for it. If he said it was a sprain, well, I think it’s safe to assume it’s a sprain.

Are you sure your pain isn’t related to diabetic neuropathy?

In my late twenties, while playing tennis, I rolled over on my ankle turning to chase a lob. It swelled so quickly and crippled me so thoroughly by the time I got home that I went straight to the hospital. I told the doctor in casualty what had happened and said I supposed I had broken something. After checking the x-rays he told me, “You’ve been really unlucky here.”

“So it is broken?”

“No it’s a really bad sprain. A break would be cleaner, quicker to heal and cause you less future problems.”

He turned out to be right. It was very slow to heal - I recall that for some time it was easier to crawl around my flat than use crutches. When it did eventually heal my ankle was never totally tight again nor does it feel secure unless I have it well strapped if I am expecting to try any lateral movement. It is by no means debilitating for the level of use I require but had it happened when I was younger and playing a lot of sport I don’t know what I would have done.

Also this was 30 odd years ago and the level of care I received was pretty perfunctory but I would have been happy to have healed in 2 weeks in those days.

I suspect the word was ‘strain’ rather than sprain, and I question the doctor’s assessment of ‘bad.’ Bad, when applied to either a strain or a sprain, indicates a partial or even full tear of the muscle, tendon, or ligament involved, which obviously is not the case here. You would have to have been running full speed or preparing for a field goal kick when impacting with the rocker to get a ‘bad’ injury. Walking normal speed for an obese, elderly individual and bumping into a chair is not likely to cause a tear.

[Shrug] I know “strain” from “sprain.” I stand by my doctor’s diagnosis.

Then why are you hear asking for advice? The only thing you will get from here is armchair advice and second hand guessing.

Call your doctor.

To stealth brag about his Wolverine-like healing ability? :cool:

I sprained my ankle about two weeks ago and it still fucking hurts. (I fell going down the basement steps) I looked it up and it seems the average healing time for a sprain is about 4-6 weeks. :frowning:

Best thing to do is just stay off of it as much as possible, even if it does seem to feel better. Just because it feels somewhat better doesn’t mean it’s totally healed. Talk to your doctor.

Good luck and I hope it gets better soon.

67 or 17 years old, two weeks for a sprain, a strain, or a bruise, is not unusual, depending on how well it is being rested and how bad it is. Yes it can be as little as 10 days or it can be several months.

Sprains can be longer to heal than breaks … or quicker … depending.

In your case it really doesn’t matter which it is since you’re going to do the same anyway. Rest it and protect it until it does not hurt any more and them some more for good measure with slow return to full usual activity. The only issue is if the rest period goes much beyond two weeks whether or not you should be some sort of either formal or informal/ad hoc PT/rehabbing as well.

You can’t diagnose a sprain by looking at an x-ray. All those do is rule out broken bones.

FWIW yes you can. Strains are less likely there.

It is a bit pedantic but a sprain is of the ligaments that connect bone to bone and a strain is generally of the tendons that connect muscle to bone. There are ligaments that connect the bones of the midfoot.

Midfoot sprains generally have a twisting mechanism of injury and two weeks would be a reasonable recovery for a mild one; severe ones can take two months or more.

Yes, a striking injury is more likely to cause a bone contusion than a sprain but really who cares? Call it a fast healing sprain or a typical time course contusion, no change in care.

Thanks…
Golly, I hope at least you didn’t fall down there in the dark. That would have been worse. :frowning: