Ankle sprain help needed.

[ChickenPoetry]

Hello 👋🏼 I haven’t posted for a long time because my children are bigger but I need some advice for me.

I had a high impact ankle roll 6 days ago. Significant swelling to my whole foot within an hour. Couldn’t rest my foot without pain, because it hurt to touch. Despite this I did my best to follow RICE recommendations.

Went to minor injuries the next day and both the triage nurse and practitioner felt it looked broken so didn’t examine it pre-x-ray. The practitioner felt there were 2 areas on x-ray that they weren’t sure about so had it reviewed by the main unit. They said no break, so I was sent home with crutches and a physio follow up for 4 weeks time.

I went back the following day on my GPs advice as I still had excruciating pain and felt unwell, my foot had pins and needles/numbness, and a sharp pain on the inner ankle. They declined to repeat the X-ray, but did give me stronger pain relief and referred me to fracture clinic with a plan for repeat X-ray in 14 days.

I was expecting to hear from them today and hadn’t so chased it up to be told I have been discharged because I have no break and therefore wasn’t an appropriate referral. I should just discontinue use of the boot when able and continue with rice. I don’t have a boot.

So day 6:
My whole foot is still significantly swollen, there has only been minimal change from when I first did it.
I still have periods of numbness/pins and needles.
My ankle feels locked and I have limited movement in it.
I cannot weight bare - it’s too painful and when I manage to get my foot to go flat it feels odd - there’s lots of pressure inside my ankle and it just doesn’t feel right.
I have bruising about halfway up my shin.

I’ve been given no advice about what to expect so this might all be completely normal - hence I’d like to know your experiences for a bit of reassurance. Even with a bad sprain I’d expect to be able to walk with the crutches to support my bad foot and I can’t. 🙂

Bump.

This sounds just like what I did. Same unbearable pain and bruising. A&E were useless so I ended up at the fracture clinic a few weeks later in agony . They put me in a boot and said it's a high ankle sprain that should have been treated as non weight bearing. Two months later it's still swollen and struggling to walk.
If it's high ankle it takes much longer to heal and needs to be treated correctly.

I think this is my worry - that I’m sitting here suffering with an injury that isn’t being correctly treated.

I guess I have to ask for a referral from my GP?

I have it elevated at the minute and my whole foot and half my leg has pins and needles so I can only tolerate it for so long.

Yes GP referred me straight to the fracture clinic. The pain was in my shin as well as my inner ankle, it was agony for the first 3 or 4 weeks so really feel for you.
Get an urgent GP appointment and referral to fracture clinic.

Thank you.

My Worry was that they’d say this was normal and I’d feel like I was wasting their time, so your reply has really helped.

Even a patient information leaflet would have helped.

A sprain is worse than a break. I was in agony for weeks. Look 6 months to get nearly back to normal.

You poor thing, that sounds awful. If you can't get a boot on the NHS, then Amazon sell sprained ankle supports. They are probably not as effective as a full boot, but it would be something.

I’m annoyed actually because they read my discharge report out over the phone and it said I was able to walk on it and so should discontinue my boot when able.

I’ve not walked on it for a week and I’ve never been given a boot - no idea where that info has come from, but the person I spoke to was admin and basically said once discharged you need a new referral.

Thank you all - it is really uncomfortable, and I’m usually super independent so I’m struggling in a general sense too. I keep wondering if that’s clouding my judgement. 😂

Day 6 is nothing with a bad sprain.

Yy to ice. Try applying arnica (either as a soak or cream) to help with the bruising

Proworks Kinesiology Tape | 5m Roll of Elastic Muscle Support Tape for Exercise, Sports & Injury Recovery https://amzn.eu/d/bBDgy47

Either find a private physio who works with kinesiology tape or tape it yourself but Get someone to help you. Hold the foot flat in a right angle foot position, someone will probably need to support the foot to do this. Cut strips. at a slight stretch and starting under the foot bring them over the top to cross at the ankle at the front and up the front of the thigh a bit. Or bring them straight up the sides. Or both. Essentially you are looking to run them as additional support to the damaged ligaments. There are other strapping styles you can do and guides online but the above is a basic.

The NHS doesn't approve of kinesiology tape but I've used it time and time on all sorts of ligament injuries and it really makes a huge huge difference.

BUT and this is the big BUT

However painful it is you really must get as close to weight bearing as you can, even if that is just getting the foot flat on the floor as you swing through on your crutches. You might well find getting it moving/"walking" in a (ideally warmer water) swimming pool is so much easier.

On the support front you can get some fantastic supports on amazon and I would recommend them to help you get back to some kind of exercise (probably not until the 2 week mark if you are particularly determined with getting back to exercise) BUT they are problematic if you are badly swollen.the kinesiology tape does allow the sprain to swell without

So for on a bad sprain I rest for 3 days ish. I start aqua aerobics as soon as I can manage it then I would return to more general exercise with support at some point 2-4 weeks. I might retain that support for day to day and exercise for up to six months to reduce the risk of immediate reinjury.

We are a hypermobile family so deal with more than our fair share of ligament injuries

A boot is really really bad for a sprain. The last thing a sprain needs is to be immobilised. Everything you do should be with the goal of supported weight bearing.

I broke my calcanium which I was told is one of the worst bones to break.

Didn’t particularly hurt.

It sounds as if they’ve got your notes mixed up with someone else.
personally, I’d go back to A&E

That’s what I think too, it seems such a waste of an and e’s time though so I’ll definitely ask my GP for some advice.

Someone else has said about the tape, and although I’m sure it would be too uncomfortable right now, I’ll definitely use it to stabilise through recovery.

I’m trying to move it as much as I can, but at the minute its only my toes. 🤔

Tbh I think I might be tempted to ask pals to help with this as opposed to going back to A&E.

But all the bad sprain I or my kids have had have had all the same symptoms and time frames. So I wouldn’t be worried from the symptoms just from the incompetency of the NHS fracture clinic staff.

And tbf I'm only up and moving so quickly from even bad sprains because I'm quite experienced in them so have the technique down pat and also as a child experienced a rare complication from a sprain (that was exacerbated by immobilisation). Even then it took longer for me 2 weeks to get DD's first bad sprain foot flat to the floor reliably. She was however moving around in the swimming pool from day one.

Mobilising in water really can help

The tape will help the pain (although getting the foot in the right position to strap it might be a bit ouchy). It essentially helps do the work of the damaged ligaments.

Get it in water. It really does need to be moving

If you can find an (private) physio that works with ultrasound to promote healing and wax baths they can make a huge difference to pain levels. I don't bother on me but I do for DD