Suffering from Ankle Sprain
Ankle Sprain really no fun at all.
While I was playing badminton, my ankle suddenly rolled inward while I was doing a move. Landing to the ground, the pain is so sharp that I can’t barely move. I miss the whole game because of that but of course I didn’t miss the pain, soreness and swelling of my sprained ankle. What is ankle sprain anyway?
Ankle Spain
When one or more of our ankle ligaments are injured, that is what we called Ankle Sprain. Ankle sprain mostly happens on the outer part of our ankle.
When we do quick moves and the position of our foot is not right, when we do a sudden twist, or even when we walk and run into uneven surface, our Ligaments are forced to move away into its position and tend to stretched, like elastic bands, to cope up. In this case the Ligaments which serves to be a connection between one bone to another produces much tension, extending to its limit. And the cause of this? over stretching of the ligaments and sometimes tearing apart. Stability of the ankle joints are loss. Ankle sprains are sometimes being mistaken as strains. Be aware that strains are injury on the muscles not ligaments.
After the fall, difficulty in walking is my number one problem. Swelling and soreness occur too not to mention the pain. I can’t move my entire ankle and my joints became stiff.
RICE for Injured Ankle
I didn’t mean rice grain for that 
What I mean is RICE:
R - Rest
I - Ice
C - Compression
E - Elevation
Those are the first aid methods you can use if you happen to sprained your ankle. You must REST your ankle by NOT walking into it. A two days rest is a must. Resting your ankle can help speed up your ligaments recovery. Your tissues will start to heal itself. But if you continue on walking, you will only give your body more hard work tearing again the newly healed tissues. A bag of ICE can be applied on the swollen part for up to two days. Just apply it for up to 15 minutes, five times a day with two hours interval on each application. Compression is useful to immobilized your ankle. You can use elastic bandage until swelling decreases. Just make sure you don’t squeeze your ankle too much or don’t put the bandage too tight. And lastly, don’t forget to elevate your ankle above your heart. The purpose of ELEVATION is for better blood circulation.
Ankle Sprain can heal from 2-16 weeks. In my case, 8 weeks are my total healing time. Those two months with an injured ankle is really boring… and painful. Every injury really needs a lot of patience and discipline to be fully healed. Some exercises are also needed to restore normal ankle movement like flexing your ankle from time to time and some stretching movements focusing on your ankle to restore flexibility. All I can say is that it is all hard work.
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