Ankle Sprain 101

Don’t roll your ankle and say, she’ll be right. Yes, you will get better. Yes, the pain will ease. Yes, you will get back to sport. Will you be functioning well though? No. Will you roll your ankle again? most likely.

When you roll your ankle, it swells. This is normal. This is protective. This is GOOOD. However, too many people rest in that first week. WRONG!. You need a very active recovery from day 1. Without this your swelling will pool around your ankle and foot. This restricts mobility and then will slow recovery.

With all that extra fluid around you are going to struggle to know where your ankle is in space (proprioception) and be a higher chance of rolling your ankle again.

No, no, no. Anti-Inflams have the ability to reduce swelling, get you back quicker however some studies have shown that they can reduce the integrity of the ligament at around 4-6 weeks. Right when you’re returning to sport. So they might make you feel better, quicker however going back to soon with poor ligament integrity and no strength training is a recipe for disaster.

a) Active recovery means pumping your ankle literally 100’s of times a day in the first 72 hours. This promotes swelling movement. Think, pumping good stuff in and pumping bad stuff out. This will reduce inflammation and maximise the healing response rather than just stopping the healing response all together like anti-inflamms will do.

b) Graded strengthening, balance and proprioceptive drills. Doing early drills gets you back to sport quicker and decreases the chance you will roll your ankle again. This is great news as to often people get into a pattern of rolling, rolling, rolling and just cop having a ‘dodgy ankle’.

c) See a physio to rule out anything nasty (fracture, bone bruising etc). Then get cracking on early, active recovery. Find your entry point to loading and start working it. This will have you back to sport quicker with less chance of re rolling your ankle and maximum ligament integrity.

After you’ve been through the acute phase you only need to do maintenance drills 1-2 times per week to get the continued effects of preventing a re roll. This is huge as often a couple of simple drills done at training twice a week is more than enough to stop re injury.

This is a slightly unusual strapping for ankles that we have had good results in the clinic with.

It doesn’t replace ankle strapping for a ‘loose’ ankle in the first few weeks after a sprain. It is more for a stiff ankle, painful ankle or swollen ankle.

This often occurs 3-4 months after an ankle injury or as a result of arthritic changes at the ankle joint.

We will tend to get stiff at the ankle and this taping can help re-position the fibular to open up the ankle joint space. Overall, you will feel lighter and looser around the ankle.

This can help reduce swelling after activities or just help your ankle move better.

We like it because it is easy to apply and can have very rapid changes in a stiff or arthritic ankle.