The one thing you shouldn't do when you sprain your ankle

When you get hurt, the first thing you want to do is to look at it to "see how bad it is".

With a sprained ankle, this is the last thing that you want to do...

take off your shoe and look at your ankle!

Why?

Because your shoe and shock act as a compression bandage keeping the swelling down.

What's so important about keeping the swelling down?

Several things:

1. If your ankle is too swollen, xrays don't work. Don't ask me why that is, I don't know, I just know what the hospital used to tell me
2. The less swelling there is, the faster you will be able to start rehabilitating your ankle - after you make sure you don't have a broken or fractured bone or a torn ligament, of course.


So when should you take your shoe off?

1. When you can immediately put ice on your ankle to keep the swelling down
2. When you get to the hospital if you decide you need to go.

Reducing the swelling is the first step in starting rehabilitation of your sprained ankle because you if you can't move your ankle, you can't rehab it.

Soon - I'll tell you about the common rehab methods that most doctors recommend that don't really work very well.

Be strong!

Bret