Tuesday, June 8, 2010

How to deal with a sprained ankle.

This PSA blogpost is a little something to all my accident prone
friends. I'm no physio, but I've been lucky enough to sprain my ankle
TWICE every year since I started playing football 4 years ago.

It's no fun, being sore is shit, but I'm now a full bottle on managing
my injury.

Everything here are tips and lessons from my awesome physiotherapist
Gerard. I hope I've remembered the details right. If anyone knows
better and sees a mistake, lemme know and I'll editeditlala.

Hope you find this useful. :)

-- Ice ankle as soon as possible after injury. --

When a sprain occurs, your body sends a flood of histamines to enflame
the surrounding tissue, forming a puffy polyfilla padding.

Healing doesn't begin until the swelling goes away - ice helps to get
you to the healing stage faster. Anti-inflammatories (nurofen,
voltaren, etc.) work wonders too.

-- Get back on your feet as soon as you can. --

Gently, though. The idea is to retrain and recalibrate the muscle as
early as possible. Gets your muscle memory reinstated quickly and
starts the re-strengthening proccess.

Get the icepack on afterwards, to keep your ankle returning to the
healing process.

-- Do balancing exercises. --

Stand on your lame foot while brushing your teeth, while waiting for
coffee, while picking your nose.

When you go slightly off-balance, your ankles compensate to keep you
upright. Getting the balance calibration back in your ankle lessens
the risk of re-injury.

-- Find some caring friends to make sad faces at. --

This one's not from Gerard. It just makes me feel better when I'm
still sad after doing all the other stuff. :)

(This post is dedicated to SamE and Laura.)

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