The Twisted Story Of A Twisted Ankle

Yes, ankles are tricky. As we discussed before, they take up almost all of our body weight and this fact gets reinforced every time we feel our ankles getting tired or twisted due to over working or over burdening them. Whether it is a gym session or an aerobics class or some activity like running a marathon or trekking excursions, our ankles take a lot of toll and we often fall short when it comes to taking care of them.

A quick tip – you can try resting your feet with your ankle above your heart. Just find a spot higher than the level of your heart and keep your throbbing feet there. This will calm the pain down and provide immediate relief to your ankles from stiffness and vibrating sensations.

Ankle Supports for Effective Pain Relief

Did I mention vibrating sensations? Yes, I did and that is also a very common occurrence among many people who are actively involved in sports and weightlifting. What causes that vibration? What is the reason for our ankle to go unstable and experience cramps? This is due to weakness in the ankle muscles. When you are supposed to perform a move or stay in a certain way, and as a result experience pain and inflammation or stiffness or vibration in your ankles, that means they are weak.

You can always invest in a supportive garment or a compression sleeve intended for the purpose of supporting them. Yes these are especially designed to create pressure on your weakened muscles and nerve endings and restrict harmful movements that can cause pain, discomfort and swelling. In many cases restricting the harmful movements of the joints can relieve you of pain instantly and that also prevents the problem from getting chronic.

Compression clothing is useful in constricting the muscles and keeping them in place. This means that only those muscle fibers are in movement that are required to keep you moving for your most essential tasks without causing any pain or aggravating the problem further. With regular use of compression sleeves or similar garments, you can get rid of the problem very soon. These were some very basic measures that you can take to combat ankle injuries such as a twisted ankle and pain and are very much preventive in nature.

Understanding Ankle Pain

How would you help your ankles ailing from pain? You run and you workout to make them strong and you also take care of them when they are hurt but then what is it that you’re doing wrong? There has to be something that’s missing, right? Do you know that ankle pain can result from a lot of things? The workout that you claim to be doing and the running routine that you have might be damaging the muscles in your ankles and could be causing unnecessary strains. Things like bone fractures, medical conditions like gout, and also obesity could be the reason. Among them joint degeneration and several forms of arthritis could also be a cause.

When you experience severe pain as you put weight on your ankle, the very first step that you should take is address this pain with proper pain relief medications and treatments and any inflammation prevention ointments and remedies. Then you should go about improving blood circulation and increasing the strength in that area and of course apart from all of this, you need to understand the following as well.

Are You Resting Enough?

Chances are that your ankles do not get enough rest and this is the reason they just don’t get a break from picking and carrying all your body weight on them. They have to bear the majority of your weight no matter what activity you do and/or regardless of how long you stand or sit or perform daily home chores or office tasks. Your ankles are working almost all the time and resting would be the foremost recommended and most effective home treatment to begin with. You can also prevent redness and inflammation inside your muscle fibers from getting worse. Resting also does away with swelling.

Are You Lifting Heavy Weights?

Well again if you are putting too much pressure on your ankles while lifting weights at the gym, this could be one big reason that your ankles look the size of a freshly baked French bread. We often make the mistake of overlooking or misjudging the pain we have. The pain we feel after the workout is different from what we feel in the morning (which is primarily stiffness). And again the pain that we feel from an injury is different from the pain we feel from too much stretching.

The latter goes away as our muscles contract back to their normal size and position. Working out too much (whether you run or lift weights) will make the pain much harder to get rid of. In order to know what kind of pain it is, you need to get a proper diagnosis. Therefore understanding your body pain triggers and weak points also becomes important. Your feet have the most number of muscle and bone connections as compared to any other part of your body and if you continue to overlook this problem it might get worse and turn chronic.

Our feet and ankles take a lot of our body weight. In fact our feet take up all of our body weight and in turn a lot of pressure is bound to come on our ankles as well. But we still continue to run, jump and take them out to bicycle rides and trekking, kayaking and what not all in the name of adventure sports, fitness and vanity! Of course participating in such activities is a lot of fun but what we need to understand that is whether or not we are overworking them. Yes, there is a thing called overuse and that is what we tend to do when we use our feet and ankles.

We often tend to ignore these parts of our body. But we need to realize that our ankles in particular do a lot of work while we walk or run or lift heavy weights at the gym or cross train with our friends at the local ground.

Ankle Overuse and Related Foot Conditions

The most common use of ankles happens when you are at the gym or are involved in any kind of physical activities that require heavy lifting or cause strain on your lower body. Being overenthusiastic about your fitness and body image may not always play out well in your favor and that often results in workout related injuries. Ankles become especially prone to these problems and we don’t even realize when the issue escalates and turns into something critical. Continuous overuse of the ankle may lead to inflammation and pain and tenderness if overlooked.

Already Have An Ankle Injury?

Remember overusing your ankle if you already have even a minor injury might exacerbate the problem and increase the pain and inflammation. If you have been suffering from a long term injury or have arthritis, these problems (even if dormant at the moment) may flare-up. In worst cases you may be rendered immobilized or with surgery as your only options. There are some ways to relieve you of your ankle pain and they can be very effective if done right. We will cover those in detail in our next post so stay tuned.

Here we are again with a newer and the concluding chapter to our ankle pain management series. This was a long run but then our ankles can be really tricky. Like we said all along, they carry the entire weight of your body and are strained and stressed on more than any other limb. When they are in trouble, we are too because they can put a pause on almost all the chores we do.

We’ve already looked into the ways to prevent ankle pain and some ways to combat it in case the pain is severe and we have swelling and inflammation. Now we are going to discuss some of the more conventional ways to get rid of ankle pain. So without further ado, let’s start with:

Treating Ankle Pain With Oral Medications

You can choose to treat ankle pain with oral medications as well. In most cases it is going to be very effective. The only prerequisite is that the pain is not deep set. If it is some kind of minor sprain or twist of the ankle, then the pills taken are most definitely going to work. Doctors suggest that you should consider all the options available over the counter for maximum benefit and suitability. They shouldn’t cause you any allergic reaction or any kind of side effect whatsoever.

Don’t Take Dieting Lightly

Do you know that by changing your diet you can actually relieve knee and ankle pain? This is however very effective over a longer period of time. If you are on the heavier side, chances are that you are already experiencing poor blood circulation. You may also have heightened stress in your joints or specifically your ankles. This makes your weight-bearing joints stress even more. If you are obese or overweight and are suffering from strains frequently, it may also cause bone degeneration. Surprisingly by losing all that extra weight you can permanently resolve your ankle pain. You can also add a joint supplement to your diet. These may help you further by protecting your ankle joint and the surrounding tissue.

Exercising Is Like A Medicine

Exercise on a regular basis and you can get permanent relief from ankle pain. Always make it a point to get a physician’s advice before you start your workout regime. Do this when your ankle has healed completely. Swimming is a very effective way to make your joints more flexible. Try to hop, stretch and walk as it will strengthen your muscles and prevent future pain and injuries. So there you have it.