Ankle Sprains are Nothing to $&@% With
News flash, Ankle Sprains are Nothing to $&@% with.
Thank you Drake for your foresight from your early 2000 song. You are absolutely right, Ankle sprains are serious business. The classic “walk it off” injury has been plaguing athletes and active individuals for ages. Mostly because we still believe we can just “walk it off” which couldn’t be further from the truth.
If you want limitations from an ankle sprain or even worse recurring ankle sprains to happen, then continue icing, booting and taping up your ankles. If you are tired of persistent ankle pain, constant rolling of your ankle and decrease in performance then listen up!
An ankle sprain is a ligamentous injury!
You wouldn’t skip rehabbing an ACL or MCL injury, so why an ankle sprain. All are ligaments which have an important roll of stabilizing their respective joint. Its extremely common following a ligamentous injury that is of motion in the joint occurs due to the body attempting to protect the joint. For some, the range of motion gradually restores itself.
For most, the motion is not fully restore and help is needed either in the form of exercise or hands on therapies. Lack of restoring full range can cause a host of issues not only in the joint but the whole body when it comes or higher performance. As the body/brain/person works around the loss of motion this can cause additional stress/strain in other regions of the body and potentially pain and dysfunction.
Ankle sprain is also a brain injury!
Ligaments are highly innervated tissues aka they have a lot nerves! These nerves provide intel to the brain on where the foot/ankle/body is in space. Following a sprain the intel sent to the brain is distorted. As a result the brain’s interpretation of where the foot/body is thrown off. The brain attempts to compensate for that by an beginning to over rely on our visual system to tell us where we are.
This is all fine and dandy In situations of low speed, high light and our feet in our visual feed. However, in situations such as a night game, or quick cutting the brain “gets lost in the sauce” and a result is not able quickly and accurately determine where the foot/ankle should be or react to forces being applied to it. As a result this may lead to spraining the ankle again or limitation in reaction/performance.
Unaddressed Ankle sprains can lead to other injuries!
We know from research that individuals post ankle sprain may lose their ability to fully dorsiflex their foot./ankle while bearing weight on the joint. We also know individuals with a loss of DF are more susceptible to shin splints, ACL and Achilles injuries. And these injuries take a lot longer to heal/recover from than an ankle sprain.
So in summary please treat all ankle sprains seriously and make sure that when you do go back to sport you are beyond 100% ready. Your rehab should normalize your ankle so that you cannot tell the difference between your injured and non-injured ankle in terms of motion, strength, stability and control, Make sure that you are challenged in rehab so that you are prepared for the load and stress that you will experience in your sport/activity.
Written by Dr. Jeremy Boyd, PT, DPT, OCS, SCS, CSOMT, FAAOMPT, USAW