Tips For Treating And Healing Your Ankle Sports Injury

Whether you rolled your ankle playing organized sports or injured it while out running in a fun community race last weekend, it's important you take special care to treat and heal it. As long as your ankle is not broken and doesn't require immediate medical treatment from a doctor or emergency room, then there are many things you can do to treat it at home and make it feel better. 

Rest and Stay Off of Your Injured Ankle 

The absolute best thing you can do for a freshly injured ankle is to stay off of it and let it rest. While your body will quickly work to heal itself, it's vital you don't make the injury worse before it has the chance to stop swelling and start healing.

Keep Your Ankle Elevated and Use Ice to Reduce Painful Swelling

The reason ankle injuries are so painful has to do with the way the muscles, tendons, and other soft tissues in the area will swell when they are damaged. As the soft tissues in your ankle swell up, it will throb and become really sore. The best thing you can do to prevent pain is to control the swelling. The two best ways to do so are to keep your ankle elevated above your heart and apply an ice pack to your ankle every few hours

When using the ice pack, make sure you wrap it in a towel to ensure you don't end up with frostbite on your skin.

Start Strengthing the Muscles in Your Ankle as the Pain Subsides

As the pain in your ankle subsides and it starts to feel better, then you need to work to strengthen the muscles. To do so, start slowly by simply moving the ankle around in space. As you can bear weight on it, regularly walking on it and standing on one foot are great ways to get everything back into shape.

Seek Professional Medical Attention if Your Sports Ankle Injury Isn't Improving as Expected

Though it will naturally take some time for your ankle to heal from its sports injury, it should steadily improve as the days pass. If time passes and your ankle doesn't feel any better, then it's time to seek professional medical attention. You could have a stress fracture, torn cartilage, or another issue that requires intervention in order to correctly heal.

For more information contact a clinic like Town Center Orthopaedic Associates, P.C.


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