So it should be of no surprise when I tell you that this past week I had a mild aftershock of the earlier incident a few weeks back. I was walking out of the gym and managed to step on a slightly uneven part of the concrete and BAM! Sprained it AGAIN.
EPIC FAIL.
Luckily it was just a mild sprain and I could move on it again quickly, but that didn't change the amount of pain I experienced immediately afterwards. I sat on the ground outside of 24 hour fitness doing something like this for ten minutes:
What's more embarrassing is that the receptionist came outside offering to call 911. Seriously? from WALKING? This was the last straw.
I was immediately prompted to look up everything I could about ankle recovery and rehabilitation. It's amusing that I could spend so much time on the intricacies of dieting and exercise and not have a clue about what I could do to improve the condition of this common injury and possibly decrease the likelihood of it happening again. I guess I used to think that this was just something people had to deal with like the common cold. I now know that this isn't the case. So for those of you who have experienced this in the past, I'd like to share with you some interesting new (sort of) techniques to speed recovery and promote prevention.
On Recovery:
The old adage of RICE (Rest, Ice, Compress, Elevate) to treat a sprained ankle is archaic and now somewhat obsolete . Physical trainers have found that this is a very slow and inconvenient process that could take weeks to recovery. Instead, many sources including my current physical therapist now advocate a different process that could have you up and running as soon a DAY after, even for severe sprains. What's the secret?
The first ten minutes of an ankle sprain are critical. Your body is responding to the shock by sending massive amounts of blood to the area to stabilize and prevent movement. This causes the severe swelling that we usually associate with sprains. While sometimes this might be a good thing, swelling actually hinders the recovery process if the blood is allowed to remain in the area and prevent movement. Hence the new method of treating ankle sprains is as follows:
1. Ice/compress/elevate immediately in the first 10 minutes. The goal of this is to do everything in your power to prevent your blood from pooling in the ankle. You want to stop swelling before it can happen.
2. While icing, start moving your ankle joint immediately after the pain has subsided. Don't force large movements that increase pain, but move your joint within a tolerable range of motion. The goal of this is to promote blood circulation, which does two things: 1. Prevents pooling and swelling of blood to the area, and 2. Brings fresh blood to the joint to accelerate the healing process.
3. See a physical therapist as soon as possible for soft tissue massage work. Physical therapy on a sprain hurts like hell, but will improve blood circulation and increase your tolerable range of motion immensely to the point where you can do everyday activities and maybe even exercise again. They literally squeeze the swelling out of the area if you have any left.
On Rehabilitation and Prevention:
This was something I used to ignore completely, but now know is an important part of preventing injury in the future. Everytime you sprain your ankle, the tendons/ligaments in the area grow a little looser. In addition to this, sprains in the first place are indicators of an imbalance in your ankle stabilizing muscles (Read here for geek explanation) as well as poor flexibility and inadequate joint proprioception (i.e.: sense of joint position a.k.a. knowing your foot's in the wrong position so you can correct it before it lands on the ground).
Thus, proper rehabilitation focuses not only on increasing ankle stability by strengthening the proper muscles, but also on balance and concentration exercises to improve proprioception. The following are some great instructional and demonstrative videos:
They say the majority of ankle injuries are caused from previous ankle sprains not properly rehabilitated. (Um... guilty as charged?) So it's important to reiterate the importance of a rehabilitation regimen shortly following injury. DO THESE EXERCISES IF YOU SPRAIN YOUR ANKLE.
I'm already working on these exercises as I blog about this. I have strengthening bands and wobble boards on the way. For anyone interested in these items, you can find them here:
Hope you find this information useful!
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