First off, WebMD is completely worthless. It tells you to see a doctor if anything but the most minor infraction has occured. Worthless! As some of you may know, I sprained the hell out of my ankle this past weekend. I'm trying to see from some of you that have had this before if mine seems normal. My foot has slowly allowed me to put more movement into it day by day, but I still can do nothing but a sprained shuffle. That's not my major concern. What is is that my foot has swelled up quite a bit, and that hasn't gone down. Plus my entire upper foot and toes are completely blue due to bruising, as are both of the sides of my foot. The ankle area is unbruised, but then I have bruising upwards of my ankle halfway to my calf. The bruising hasn't gone down, either. So does this sound like something I can eventually walk-off? (with the normal bedrest like this week.) Or does it sound more serious? I really don't know.
Any waking moment that allows for it -- add ice. There really is no other cure. When the damn thing finally kinda-cures itself, excercise it with that stair workout. Put the balls of your feet on the edge of a stair, let your heels drop below the stair, then pull your feet back up.
ice is good. ibuprofen should help take down some of the swelling as well. There really isn't much else to do but wait for your body to heal itself. Depending on how bad the sprain is, it could be months.
The D-fin is indestrucable and therefor cannot offer any advice due to having no personal experience with physical ailments.
The bruising is kind of creepy, but it is normal. Your whole damn foot is purple, but it will go away.
Fatty listen to me carefully man, I dont want the same thing that happened to me happen to you. I got a sprained ankle like a year ago. I did the exact same thing you did. No big deal, its just a sprain, Im not gonna see a Dr. thats for p*ssys. I started to put weight on it when I could and it remained swollen and bruised for like a week. Before I new it I was putting alot of weight on it and it died down. The exact same thing happened to my other ankle and I ignored it again with the same stupid treatment. A few months later Im playing basketball and I go up for a simple jumpshot and my ankle freakin collapses. The pain was terrible. This time I was like screw that and I went to the Dr. Come to find out the Dr. tells me that I screwed both of my ankles by not letting them heal properly. The tendons healed wrong and now are very very weak and the tiniest mistep and Im down for the count. Now becuase I was stupid, I cannot play basketball without wrapping both my ankles really tight, and even that isn't a guarantee. Even with the wraps I sprained it again. Cue the tiny violin It sucks man I feel like I'm 60 and I'm only 24. Look bro if you want my advice don't mess around with your body. See a Dr. or even if you don't you need to wrap it and keep it from moving for like a week. DO NOT PUT PRESSURE ON IT, and use ice like Kelley said. Whatever you do don't take it lightly or you might end up like me. Violin stops
I have sprained my ankle multiple times, the last time being my senior year playing football when I tore 3 ligaments in the ankle. They were not torn all the way through so we decided against surgery. My advice to you is to rest it from sports other than jogging. As soon as you can begin to jog you should. The swelling is going to leave your ankle and foot with scar tissue giving your ankle a chronic "tilt" if you do not break up this scar tissue. This tilt will then make it much easier to reinjure the ankle. This is what happend to me. Even while I jog, I can tell that my right foot seems to tilt in between steps. However, before you will be able to jog you should stretch your ankle several times a day using one of those large rubber stretching devices. Also, work on your balance as this will all help to get rid of the scar tissue. The most important advice I can give you, however, is to ice the ankle on and off for 20 minute intervals throughout the day and when you are done with stretching your ankle and running on it as the swelling will most likely return as you break up the scar tissue. This will all take weeks and possibly months until you feel comfortable enough to play sports again at full speed depending on the severity of your injury.
Like Kelly said, the bruising looks bad but is normal. I've had sprains that still hurt when walking a month later and I couldn't fully run on it for 5-6 months. Here's a site with tips to treat it. http://hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/html/Sprained_ankle.html In addition to icing it you can also add heat. If you do, ice it for about 20 minutes, then heat for 20, then ice again. The heat will help the pain and also increase blood flow helping to clean the injured area. Make sure to ice it afterwards to slow the blood flow and reduce swelling.
If you come back too early, you're screwed. I sprained both ankles, half the time severely, probably 4-8 times (each) in about an eight-month span in 1999. You have to let the muscles build back up before playing basketball (or anything like that).
rest, ice, compression, and elevation of the ankle above heart level. if you play basketball and have the constant of ankle sprains (like i do), you should try ASO ankle braces. I haven't had a sprain since and it feels fine when worn with my bball shoes. the only bad thing is that if you use the ASO braces too much, your ankle may become too dependent on the braces, causing the muscles around your ankle area to weaken. i'd only use it for 1-2 hrs of playing at a time.
Oh, it is waaayyy too soon to use an ASO bandage. I can barely put a sock on right now, it is so excruciating. The only thing that doesn't hurt right now is putting weight on it, and walking in small stutter steps.
i went to the doctor when i sprained mine like 2 years ago. it was pretty bad, he gave me Celebrex which is AMAZING. i mean within 20 mintes the pain and swelling had gone down dramatically. get some celebrex if u can, i dunno how just get. ice it for 20 minutes every hour if u can. never directly on skin of course. it took about 2 weeks for me to recover from mine.
so that's the prerequisite for becoming a sports journalist now FFB, bucket of ice dude there is also some cream (can't remember the name) that helps draw the bruising out it is worth remembering the swelling and bruising happens for a reasons, to stop the ankle moving and protect the damaged ligaments.... they will eventually heal some, depending on how bad sprained, although if it still real bad in a few weeks, interms of sore when you rotate foot and also stability i would suggest getting it check out in case you have completely snapped a ligament assuming it starts getting better, get yourself a wobble board, they are best for rehab, also try walking as much as you can barefoot, also helps regain stability and strength
