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Anyone have tips for a sprained ankle? Ugh!


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Well this is a first for me... On Sunday I sprained my ankle and it has slowed my life to a crawl. I hate this. It was a sunny Sunday morning. The sun was out, birds were chirping and I think I even heard the trees singing. There I was ready to head off for my morning Timmies. Out the door! Down the stai... *Crash BANG BOOM* Down I went on that veeeeery last stair. I really don't know what I did or how I planted my foot. All I can remember is PAIN. And lots of it.

So here I am now with a swollen ankle. Today I'm not able to walk on it and some minor bruising has begun to appear. I was hoping that I had a minor sprain but it's looking like it might be serious so I'm going to see a doctor tomorrow.

I've never sprained anything before but I've read that it's very common. That said does anyone have any tips on how to speed up my healing process? I can't stand the idea of being like this for another day, let alone weeks. Or months! :oooo:

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Ice right after the injury, heat after the first day or 2. Everyone's got a different recovery time for these things, so just see how it goes and as much as it might suck, give the foot some rest :)

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I recommend getting physical therapy after it's healed up to help get the ankle working properly again.

don't overdo walking until it's healed either -- that set me back when I overdid walking.

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Ack.. I did that once.. I was carrying a big TV set outside.. Stepped on the edge of a pothole and it rolled my ankle.

 

I was on crutches for a couple of weeks. But as people have said - ice and heat. Maybe an Ace type bandage to keep the swelling in check. Keep your foot elevated also.

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Sorry to hear that. My friend did that while jogging and she kept trying to go running on it before it was ready. It bothered her for a year. So, in addition to whatever else, give it time to heal.

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When I was a soccer trainer of the local girls team my wife gave me a list of what to do if one of the kids would have a similiar injury:

 

Check at hospital right away:

One reason is insurance as a trainer, not valid in your case.

The other is that x-ray, CT, MRT, ... all have better results as long as there is no swelling yet

 

Treatment:

The german classic if no tendons are affected: Quarkwickel.

Smear a real thick layer of cool quark (sort of soft cheese) on the ankle and then wrap an elastic bandage around. Quark is cooling better than an ice pack and it has some not fully researched properties to stop infections.

 

What is Quark:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_%28cheese%29

 

From this Wiki:

In Switzerland, quark is recommended by some physiotherapists as an alternative to ice for treatment of swelling associated with sprains, etc. It can be cooled in a refrigerator and then applied to swollen tissues (enclosed in a plastic bag). The advantages over ice are that it doesn't get so cold, reducing risk of damage to treated tissue, but stays cooler longer.

 

The plastic bag is insurance stuff, if there are open wounds. It has a better effect if a bandage made of linnen or similiar sucks up the moisture and cools like a candle effect. Also the bandage fixes the ankle a bit already.

If there are no open wounds Quark is also used at sunburns, insect stings, high fever, ....

 

So always have some Quark in the fridge. If it is not used for first aid you can use it for one of the famous german cheese-cakes ;)

 

My wife told me to write no open wounds because Quark may contain more bacteria in other countries, producers, ...

 

An easy memory rule for kids is PECH. Pech is german for tough luck, misfortune.

 

P for Pause, stop activities right away

E for Eis (ice), cold water, icing, cooling

C for Compresse, bandages

H for Hochlagern, rest the leg in a high position

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An easy memory rule for kids is PECH. Pech is german for tough luck, misfortune.

 

P for Pause, stop activities right away

E for Eis (ice), cold water, icing, cooling

C for Compresse, bandages

H for Hochlagern, rest the leg in a high position

We have the same thing in Australia, just with a different mnemonic - RICE - Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation. Medicine is universal :)

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Think I had that 8-9 times. Being goalie at soccer and being underrun when jumping for a ball.

 

Recovery is faster with some training tools.

 

I used a Kippbrett when sitting at Computer to train the ankle. It is a board with a halfcircle pole attached.

 

http://www.bruegger.ch/g_shop_ch/images/product_images/info_images/kippbrett_kompl.jpg

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Sorry to hear about that, Schot. :cry:

 

Some good advice here already, and if you're going to the Doc anyway listen to what they say. Unfortunate part is you will be hurting for about a week or 10 days and you really should take it easy for another couple of weeks after that. Usually I avoid painkillers (for a lot of reasons) but if you have to IIRC ibuprofen (Advil) is the one you want.

 

Get Better!

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That must have been very painful Ysne. I hope I didn't tear anything that bad. Yikes!

 

Wow, thanx for the advice guys! Swelling has gone down some but pain has gone up a tiny bit. Could it be that the swelling was actually preventing some types of pain? As if it was padding the hurt area? I read that swelling can cause pain but I'm starting to wonder now... Anyway! gogo got me some Crutches so some of my freedom has been returned. Whew! Thanx gogo!friends.gif

 

Nice training tool Chattius. I'll try building something like that out of random materials here at home. That's a very smart exercise.

 

p.s.

I LOVE auto save! I made this post hours ago but forgot to submit it. I had browsed to other pages within this browser tab and when I realized what I had done I desparately used the back button in the hopes my text would still be in the quick reply box. It wasn't... But! That little bit of text in the bottom left of the post reply box said "View Auto Saved Content". So I clicked it and it magically displayed the text I had typed previously and asked if I would like to use it. YEEESSS! Haha. That's an amazing feature from an update we did on the forum about a month ago. Very nice feature. :D

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Yup the swelling could be masking other probs. While swollen, bones and ligaments are held in place somewhat. As swelling goes down any injured bone/ligament/muscle has more room to move. And if it's damaged, the damaged area has more room to move too.

Really hope you get some x-rays and an MRI...and not putting any weight on that ankle :D

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I dislike painkillers in this case. Pain is an indicator when you do wrong moves.

 

My health insurance paid special bandages. Their reason was it is cheaper to pay for them than 1 day longer away from work. Just ask the doc.

I lack the english words:

 

http://www.sportmed24.de/images/produkte/550/M120_122_Mikros_Fussbandage.jpg

 

They prevented wrong moves and icould do sports again after 3 weeks while wearing them.

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Ouch! I have never sprained my ankle, but a truck ran over my leg once, and I have a problem with my right shoulder at the moment. It dislocated 4 times in a months time, went to a shoulder specialist on Monday, and I found out I have a diabetic frozen shoulder. According to the doc, it is caused by sudden trauma(the 4 dislocations) and is not very common in people under the age of 40years of age... I'm only 25! I have to wait for the muscles and ligaments to "relax" which can take any amount of time and the Doc said there isn't really something I can do to help it along, just don't do something that causes pain. I might have to have an operation later if it doesn't heal properly on its own...

Good luck Schot!

 

Delta!

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Delta -- massage therapy and ultrasound -- along with gentle physical therapy once that starts unfreezing. Go back to your doc and insist on a referreal to physical therapy for those treatments. Much faster than just waiting and probably better for the shoulder.

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Delta: I hope you didn't imitate Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon to impress the girls.

 

Thete is a german saying:

Wer den Schaden hat braucht fuer den Spott nicht zu sorgen.

Who has the damage/loss/injury doesn't need to wait for the laughing.

 

I had a dislcated shoulder at army. Was fixed right away at the training field by a first aid soldier with lots of experience. 3 weeks special training and exercises. But the longer and the more often it is dislcated the longer it takes. 4 is a lot, guess you need professional help with exercises to find out which you need and to learn how far you can go without dislocating again.

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Ouch! I have never sprained my ankle, but a truck ran over my leg once, and I have a problem with my right shoulder at the moment. It dislocated 4 times in a months time, went to a shoulder specialist on Monday, and I found out I have a diabetic frozen shoulder. According to the doc, it is caused by sudden trauma(the 4 dislocations) and is not very common in people under the age of 40years of age... I'm only 25! I have to wait for the muscles and ligaments to "relax" which can take any amount of time and the Doc said there isn't really something I can do to help it along, just don't do something that causes pain. I might have to have an operation later if it doesn't heal properly on its own...

Good luck Schot!

 

Delta!

 

Ack.. So it actually is a condition AND it has a name...

 

I've had this frozen shoulder thing twice - once on each side. Not quite sure what sort of trauma they've been through, but I've had range of motion issues on both sides, thankfully not at the same time.

 

Actually, there IS something that can be done to help the healing along - Acupuncture. I forget the name of the actual point they used to prick on my leg, but oddly enough, it did make moving that arm a LOT easier. But as this article says, it lasts about 9 months and goes away.

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Yup the swelling could be masking other probs. While swollen, bones and ligaments are held in place somewhat. As swelling goes down any injured bone/ligament/muscle has more room to move. And if it's damaged, the damaged area has more room to move too.

Really hope you get some x-rays and an MRI...and not putting any weight on that ankle :D

I'm an advocate of good diagnoses as well, xrays can help, and give roadmap

 

:)

 

gogo

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Sounds horrible Brad, hope you get back on your tippy-toes quickly ;) but yeah, take the time to heal properly. I've had some stuff happen to me before and I am not the type of person to just sit around waiting for things to heal... Lets just say my shoulder still protests sometimes after my broken collar bone, and I've (likely) had a severely sprained thumb (or a broken one) with wich I never went to the doctor and that bothered me for more than a year.

So please do take your time to get those red pots to kick in ;)

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Swelling has gone down some but pain has gone up a tiny bit. Could it be that the swelling was actually preventing some types of pain? As if it was padding the hurt area? I read that swelling can cause pain but I'm starting to wonder now...

 

 

Yup the swelling could be masking other probs. While swollen, bones and ligaments are held in place somewhat. As swelling goes down any injured bone/ligament/muscle has more room to move. And if it's damaged, the damaged area has more room to move too.

Really hope you get some x-rays and an MRI...and not putting any weight on that ankle :D

 

 

Yeah.. But I don't think that will take away the pain so much. In fact, it should still hurt like the dickens.

 

Schot: Go see the Dr!

 

Well the swelling nearly all gone. This morning I noticed a significant amount of swelling was gone but what I also noticed was that the pain was up a fair bit too. Not terrible but enough so that if I even attempted to put weight on the ankle that my ankle would scream pain at me. "ok ok ok!" haha.

 

Still haven't seen a doctor yet. It's been a week now so I'll go tomorrow and get some advice. I confess. I hate doctors. They never seem very accurate in their diagnosies and more often than not they won't even diagnose.

 

 

I dislike painkillers in this case. Pain is an indicator when you do wrong moves.

 

That's always been my thinking as well. It's very rare that I will take pain killers. Pain is an important sense when injuries are involved. If I had pain from disease then I would probably use pain killers but for something like muscle, bone, ligament pain there is usually an alternative non chemical solution such as posture, immobilzation, exercise, etc...

 

Ouch! I have never sprained my ankle, but a truck ran over my leg once, and I have a problem with my right shoulder at the moment. It dislocated 4 times in a months time, went to a shoulder specialist on Monday, and I found out I have a diabetic frozen shoulder. According to the doc, it is caused by sudden trauma(the 4 dislocations) and is not very common in people under the age of 40years of age... I'm only 25! I have to wait for the muscles and ligaments to "relax" which can take any amount of time and the Doc said there isn't really something I can do to help it along, just don't do something that causes pain. I might have to have an operation later if it doesn't heal properly on its own...

Good luck Schot!

 

Delta!

 

Wow. I've read about frozen shoulders but never about a diabetec frozen shoulder. "wait for the muscles and ligaments to "relax" which can take any amount of time"... Ugh! That's the worst. When your body is all bunched up and all you can do is wait. Terrible. Thanx Delta!

 

Actually, there IS something that can be done to help the healing along - Acupuncture. I forget the name of the actual point they used to prick on my leg, but oddly enough, it did make moving that arm a LOT easier. But as this article says, it lasts about 9 months and goes away.

 

Oh! That might be good for my sprained ankle. I'm gonna give that a try. :)

 

 

Yup the swelling could be masking other probs. While swollen, bones and ligaments are held in place somewhat. As swelling goes down any injured bone/ligament/muscle has more room to move. And if it's damaged, the damaged area has more room to move too.

Really hope you get some x-rays and an MRI...and not putting any weight on that ankle :D

I'm an advocate of good diagnoses as well, xrays can help, and give roadmap

 

:)

 

gogo

 

I hate doctors... Oh did I already say that. pardon.gif

 

Sounds horrible Brad, hope you get back on your tippy-toes quickly ;) but yeah, take the time to heal properly. I've had some stuff happen to me before and I am not the type of person to just sit around waiting for things to heal... Lets just say my shoulder still protests sometimes after my broken collar bone, and I've (likely) had a severely sprained thumb (or a broken one) with wich I never went to the doctor and that bothered me for more than a year.

So please do take your time to get those red pots to kick in ;)

 

I can't seem to drink enough of those red pots. Heh! Speaking of toes I've started to do some basic exercises like wiggling toes and stuff. Even that is a challenge. Seems my range of motion all over my foot and ankle are quite limited for now. So I'm practicing baby steps. ^^ Cheers Timo!

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Well the swelling nearly all gone. This morning I noticed a significant amount of swelling was gone but what I also noticed was that the pain was up a fair bit too. Not terrible but enough so that if I even attempted to put weight on the ankle that my ankle would scream pain at me. "ok ok ok!" haha.

 

Still haven't seen a doctor yet. It's been a week now so I'll go tomorrow and get some advice. I confess. I hate doctors. They never seem very accurate in their diagnosies and more often than not they won't even diagnose.

 

Well.. That IS why they call it PRACTICING medicine...

 

Ever watch "House" on TV? They seem to go through 50 diagnosis per episode to save people's lives until they finally reach the one that saves the guy's life (or not).

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Seems health insurance is different here. A high-tec bandage allows to walk and work earlier so most docs do an recipe for one. For days away from work you need a paper from a doc too. So normally people I know (mainly soccer players) visit a doc for the paper and a bandage.

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