How To Fully Heal An Ankle Sprain
An ankle sprain is a common injury often requiring only 6 weeks of healing. During this period, rest, icing, and compression are key to helping the damaged tissue around the ankle heal. Unfortunately, many people are left with weak ankles after an ankle injury and suffer multiple ankle sprains. With Physical Therapy, you can avoid this fate, strengthen your ankles, and prevent future ankle sprains.
After a sprain, the ankle is weak. The tissue may have healed but they are left in a weakened state. At this point, many people just feel that they are perfectly healthy, forget about rehabilitation, and continue with their normal lives before they suffered the injury.
Then, within weeks, sometimes days, they re-roll their ankle and have to spend another month recovering again. This cycle can repeat multiples times and the reason is because the ankle cannot support the weight and balance of the body even after it heals. One little misstep can cause another sprain.
Prevent Future Ankle Sprains
The way to prevent this problem is through a Physical Therapy program. Several weeks of physical therapy can vastly prepare your healed ankle for the real world. Through a combination of hands-on therapy, stretching, and strengthening, we, at Cross Bay Physical Therapy, rebuild your ankle strength so it can handle intense and normal activity.
One example of an exercise is balancing on a BOSU Ball. A BOSU Ball is an inflated ball with a flat surface. A person balances on the BOSU Ball one leg at a time for 60 seconds. This exercise strengthens the muscles surrounding the ankle and helps the patient work on their balance. They will be prepared to protect themselves against slipping and twisting their ankle.
The calf muscle is another muscle to improve after an ankle injury. During the healing process, the calf takes on much of the responsibility of the ankle. Sometimes, this muscles is overworked and weakened as well. By strengthening the calf during the healing process, we are enabling the calf to support the ankle during it’s recovery and protecting the calf from becoming overworked. A strong calf muscles helps the ankle heal faster because the calf can then handle more of the body’s weight while the ankle heals.
In summary, it is vital to rehabilitate your ankle after an ankle sprain and to do so, under the guidance of a physical therapist. Without doing so, you will be left with weak ankles that are prone to future injury. You don’t want to wait 6 weeks to heal only to re-injure yourself immediately afterwards.
Call (718) 835-0084 and schedule your initial evaluation.