Sprained Ankles
Addressing Sprained Ankles So You Can Get Back in the Game
From a basketball player landing awkwardly on their foot after jumping to walking on an uneven surface causing your ankle to turn inward, sprained ankles are a common and painful injury.
What Is It?
Considered a soft tissue injury, a sprained ankle is when there’s been some strain or pulling of some ligaments around the ankle. Often, it’s not only these ligaments around the ankle that are affected but also the muscles, tendons and nerves. A break is when you might roll the ankle, for example, and then there’s a fracture—a bone broken in that area.
Getting an Evaluation: What to Expect
A sprained ankle is often diagnosed through the mechanism of injury. When you come in for an evaluation, we will take a detailed subjective history of how the injury happened. We’ll ask questions like
What did you do?
Did you roll the ankle?
Did you land on the ankle hard?
We need to ensure that we rule out any fracture. So there are certain tests that we can do to determine whether it’s a fracture or to give us a sign if there’s a fracture. Then there are specific orthopedic tests that we can do that will help us determine whether there’s been just a ligament sprain, or whether muscles are affected, and which structures are affected and injured.
Our Treatment Approach
Treating a sprained ankle requires maintaining mobility to preserve strength, range of motion, and reduce swelling. The goal is to restore a typical walking pattern and enable full weight bearing through various exercises and techniques.
To regain range of motion and strength, exercises, joint mobilizations, soft tissue techniques, and manual therapy are employed. Strengthening the ankle and surrounding muscles is crucial for patients to comfortably engage in daily activities.
Here are some other approaches that may be helpful:
Ice, elevation and compression
Ice and elevation will help decrease the swelling, and some compression might help remove the swelling.
Immobilization
Depending on the severity of the ankle injuries, we may need to do some immobilization, whether with a brace or crutches, to take some load off the ankle, which may help the ankle rehab.
Laser therapy
With Low Level Laser Therapy (LLLT), we’re applying a light wave to the skin that can increase the healing and bring nutrients to those tissues, which can then help heal those soft tissues. The laser speeds up the healing by bringing the nutrients and allows those tissues to release chemicals that encourage the healing and recovery of those tissues.
Chiropractic care
Chiropractic care can help a patient recover from a sprained ankle by promoting proper alignment and joint function. By addressing any misalignments or imbalances in the surrounding structures, our chiropractors can help ease pain, reduce inflammation, and support the healing process.
Getting Athletes Back to 100 Percent
For athletes, such as a basketball player, we’ll create an individualized program for them, so that they can perform movements like jumping, cutting, running and pivoting, so that they can get back to 100% and decrease the risk of injury.
Book an Appointment
If you have a sprained ankle, we want to help you heal, so you can get back in the game and back to your life. Call today to schedule your time.
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