Swelling - its not your friend, but it is

Swelling is not your friend...but it is.

Kind of confusing, isn't it?

Let me explain what this is about...

Swelling around an injured ankle is your body's way of protecting that ankle from further damage.

Whenever you suffer an ankle sprain, your body responds by doing everything that it can to stop movement. It responds by flooding the twisted ankle and the area around it with blood and lymph.

While it's a great mechanism to prevent additional damage after the initial ankle injury...swelling actually extends ankle rehab time for days maybe even weeks.

So, if you are in a hurry to get your ankle healed, one of the ways you can accelerate the whole process of rehabbing is to get the swelling down fast.

There are a lot of medicines you can take to reduce swelling, but almost all of them have some kind of side effects that you have to be concerned about.

The best way that I have found to reduce swelling in a rolled ankle is by getting moving...use the muscles in your legs to pump the swelling out.

Don't think getting moving is a good idea? Here's some history on what the medical establishment thinks about getting moving as early as possible after an injury or surgery.

As medical science advances, researchers are finding out that the earlier a person gets back to normal activity after an injury, the more complete the recovery is.

For example..I remember when my grandpa had his first open heart surgery. The doctors did not want him getting out of bed or doing anything for 10-14 days. He was told to stay in bed, in the hospital until he was "ready" to start the physical therapy portion of recovery. That was back in the 1970's.

The same thing applied with recovery after other surgeries or even after giving birth...wait for a week to 10 days and then start getting back to your normal routine slowly.

Fast forward to today. My father-in-law had open heart surgery to repair some blocked arteries in November of 2006. The doctors wanted him to be on his feet, out of bed and walking within 24 hours of the surgery being completed. (Actually they really wanted him to be up and out of bed earlier, but max was 24 hours)

Doctors realize that getting moving after an injury or surgery is a big key to accelerating recovery and reducing rehabilitation time.

Apply this concept to ankle sprains.

The earlier you can get on your ankle (after you know you don't have a broken ankle or torn ligaments) the faster you will recover.

So, movement as soon as possible accelerates the healing process...but it has to be the right type of movement and it must be safe so you don't risk further injuring your ankle before its healed.

Understand that by reducing ankle swelling, you are vulnerable to additional injury so you have to be careful what you do to strengthen your ankle.

The ankle rehab program that you follow must be safe and effective or you could actually make things a lot worse quickly.