If you’ve ever sprained your ankle during a workout, you know it can be not only painful, but also debilitating. From rest and physical therapy to icing and wrapping your ankle in an ace bandage, a sprain can be a pain in more ways than one.
What’s a sprain exactly?
If you’ve got a mild sprain, you’re probably just overstretched and irritated your ligaments. If it’s more severe, the ligaments may have actually torn.
Sprains can take anywhere from days to months to fully heal, depending on the severity.
Home treatment
The first rule is to take weight off your ankle. That means resting it and elevating it. If you’ve got crutches, you may want to use them to avoid walking on that leg. Use a bandage to immobilize the joint and reduce swelling. You can try propping your ankle up on a pillow so it’s higher than your heart.
Take a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory, like ibuprofen, to help with pain and swelling.
Apply an ice pack for 10 to 20 minutes at a time but wrap the ice in a towel to avoid hurting your skin. The ice will help reduce blood flow to the ankle and decrease swelling and pain.
Although heat can feel good and help increase blood flow to your ankle to speed up the healing process, don’t apply heat while the ankle is still swollen. Once the swelling goes down, you can alternate heat and the ice pack.
Once the swelling has decreased, try moving your ankle around by rolling the foot, flexing forward and then back. By stretching your ankle, you’ll increase blood flow and keep the muscles strong and flexible.
Walking a little bit can help—but only after the swelling has started to go down, and only in short bursts.
If the pain and swelling don’t go down in a couple days, you may have a more severe injury that requires a doctor’s evaluation. Serious sprains—or sprains that are actually breaks—may require surgery or physical therapy.
