Not too long ago, Dr. Silverman sat down with his friends at A Nation in Motion and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons to answer some common foot questions. One of the questions was one that we hear in our office all the time. The question Dr. Silverman was asked to answer was:
“I sprained my ankle two weeks ago. It’s not broken, but it’s still stiff and painful to walk on. Is that normal?”
Head over to the A Nation in Motion website to check out the answer, or take a look at Dr. Silverman’s video response below! We’ve also included a text transcription below.
Sprains That Won’t Go Away
Here’s the text from the video.
This is a question I get in my office quite routinely. People have ankle sprains or they had ankle sprains in the past and they were told that sprains can be worse than a fracture. When you think about what happens when you sprain your ankle, it’s very similar to what happens when you fracture or break your ankle. When you sprain your ankle, you often roll it in the same manner as if you were to fracture it. The energy is absorbed by the soft tissues, rather than absorbed by the bones, and just because a bone doesn’t break doesn’t mean you don’t feel the same amount of pain as if you had broken the bone.
Therefore, it is often still stiff and painful to walk on. You need to follow the recommendations of PRICE, which stands for Protective weight bearing, Rest, Ice, Compression and Elevation in order to let that sprained ankle to resolve.