[Will]

Ok playing football I have really badly sprained my ankle. I went to the hospital and got an x-ray to confirm that it wasn't broken which is good however over the past 5 days the swelling has gone done but this is the only improving symptom.

Symptoms:

Currently I cannot bare my weight on it

Foot is still very swollen

Foot is bruised all over

I have limited ROM in my foot.

The doctor told me if the swelling hadn't gone down in 5 days to go back to hospital but he was confident I would be walking on it by now. As a few of you are experienced athletes and coaches I am sure you will have come across an ankle sprain. When I search the internet for ankle sprains with my symptoms there is a lot of information that state they could be a lot worse than first appeared such as this website

I have attached some pictures of my ankle
 IMG_0360.JPG (1.25MB)
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 IMG_0357.JPG (1.1MB)
Number of downloads: 10
 photo.jpg (124.88K)
Number of downloads: 6

They aren't great but they are the best I could get for now, the second image was taken ~3 days ago and the other two have been taken today.

By my own admission I am slightly paranoid when it comes to sickness and injuries never had a sprain quite this bad before so I kind of want to know if this is normal or whether this looks slightly more long term than first anticipated and any sort of recovery plan? I am seeing the doctor again tomorrow but I wasn't inspired with confidence with there original suggestions so any advice from you lot would be appreciated.

[Will]

Ok got back from the doctors and they have bandaged it up and told me to keep it elevated. They have given a few exercises to do which consist of rotating my ankle, moving toes toward and away from me and regular icing.

They said if there isn't significant improvement within two weeks to go back so hopefully it will be good then.

[Franz29]

First rule on any joint injury is RICE - Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation to control and minimise the swelling. They should have told you that at the first visit to the hospital!

You may find once you sprain it once you will keep doing it so it's might be worth looking at a support of some form or other. My ankles are bad from multiple sprains (and breaks too) and I used to go over on them regularly (not so much now I barefoot run - go figure!). For sports where I change direction a lot and have to wear shoes (Soccer, football, basketball and squash mainly at the moment) I use zinc oxide tape to strap it up. I have had experience doing this correctly so it's not something I'd recommend you do in the near future, but there's no harm in looking at a good quality ankle support. You can get some good lace up ones that provide protection from inversion and/or eversion which is the cause of most sprains. I wouldn't go for the neoprene ones, they tend to suck and aren't worth the time, especially when you get hot from exercise.

[Will]

Cheers that is what I have been doing all week pretty much the swelling does seem to have gone down a lot and the pain has become much more intense and acute but apparently this is good and means its on the mend.

I probably will look into some ankle support for training as it may still be tender when I start again so thank you for the recommendations there as well.