Ankle sprain: your questions answered

How common are ankle sprains?

Ankle sprains are hugely common and most people do not go to the hospital or to see their GP if they suffer from ankle sprain. For the vast majority of cases, they recover spontanueously, without any medical intervention.

How do ankle sprains normally happen?

Generally, ankle sprains often happen relatively low energy, following a low energy accident or injury e.g. you missed your step or you came down the stairs awkwardely. Perhaps you were running and caught your foot – as your foot was hitting the ground you twisted your ankle and that’s the key- it’s a rotational or twisitng type energy. In the vast majority of the cases it’d be an inversion of the foot, underneath the leg. As you invert that foot, you damage the ligaments on the outside of the ankle Often people hear a snap or something tearing and almost immediately it’s difficult to bear weight.

What should I do to care for a sprained or fracture ankle? As with all soft tissue injuies, the first thing to do is rest the foot, to elevate it and try to reduce the swelling. A familar acronyum used in the physiotherapy community to describe care for sprained ankle is RICE Rest Icing Compression Elevation Those four steps are very helpful in the first 48 hours to help reduce some of the inflammation. By reducing the inflammation, icing it, not overloading the joint, your pain should hopefully have significant improvement over the first 24 or 48 hours. If after 48 hours it’s still significantly swollen, significantly painful and you’re having difficulty bearing weight, you have to think to yourself perhaps this is a fracture, more than a sprain and perhaps you should seek some medical advice.

How does a twisted ankle look?

There’s often a lot of bruisng, perhaps some bleeding under the skin. People often describe seeing an egg or a large swelling which appears outside of their ankle. These symptoms normally develop pretty quickly, within an hour or so.

What is the difference between an ankle fracture and a sprain?

The important thing to differentiate between an ankle fracture and sprain is the ability to bear weight. If after the initial shock and trauma is subsided and after an hour or two you’re unable to bear weight on your ankle, that’s a risk factor or sign that there might be something more serious going on, such as a fracture or broken bone and if that’s the case, you should get an x-ray. If you’ve got an inversion injury, swelling on the outside of your ankle and you’re still able to bear weight (even if it’s a little painful) chances are this is a simple sprain.

What should I do to care for a sprained or fracture ankle?

As with all soft tissue injuies, the first thing to do is rest the foot, to elevate it and try to reduce the swelling.

A familar acronyum used in the physiotherapy community to describe care for sprained ankle is RICE

Rest

Icing

Compression

Elevation.

Those four steps are very helpful in the first 48 hours to help reduce some of the inflammation. By reducing the inflammation, icing it, not overloading the joint, your pain should hopefully have significant improvement over the first 24 or 48 hours.

If after 48 hours it’s still significantly swollen, significantly painful and you’re having difficulty bearing weight, you have to think to yourself perhaps this is a fracture, more than a sprain and perhaps you should seek some medical advice.

What is the recovery time from an ankle sprain?

The overall recovery time from an ankle sprain can be quite long. People often think that a sprain is a minor injury and of course there is a whole spectrum of severity, of disease and the whole spectrum of a sprain is where the ligaments are slightly streched but there’s no significant tearing. In most cases that’ll settle down within 24, maybe 48 hours. If there’s been more significant damage to the ligaments, then sometimes it can take several weeks to fully improve.