Ankle Injury

Hey Guys,
I was down in Florida earlier this month riding. I got a little off axis on a backside three and came down with the board up too high which tweaked my ankle pretty good. It hurt a decent amount and swelled up so I iced it down. Unfortunately I had a flight out that same day, which made it even worse it wasn't direct and charlotte kept switching my gates around, So i'd say I limped a good 2 or 3 miles around on a definitely painful ankle that day. I gave it a little more icing the day after (I could kick myself for not icing and elevating it the rest of the weekend.) The following week it was hard to walk on and I had a good limp but just chalked it up as a sprain and continued on going to school and what not without crutches and without seeing a doctor.
It definitely is in better shape now, but progress has been slow. I can fully walk on it, but I can feel it's definitely tense when I flex it back and forth. I wouldn't run on it at this point, and definitely wouldn't even think of riding on it (For once thank God for Ohio weather). However we do have our first boat coming late march, And I want to do everything in my power to be at 100% recovery by then.
I'm no doctor (I just self-diagnose myself sometimes haha.) and neither are most of you. But I'm sure you guys have experience with ankle injuries. In my opinion it just sounds like a bad sprain? Is it worth going to see a doctor at this point, and should I be exercising it and building strength back or give it a little more time to heal up?
Currently I'm about 3 weeks into the injury, and it's surprising to me how slowly it's healed. I don't injury very easily and rarely for this long so that's the reason I'm questioning things, I just want to be good to go in March. Maybe I'm just worrying too much. Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks guys.

When I sprained my ankle jumping down some stairs, I was feeling it for 3 weeks. I couldn't walk on it at all, however, by some stupid measure, I thought it would be interesting to play DDR on it (my sister was given that as a Christmas gift for MY Xbox, so she was constantly begging to play it), which was not a good idea.

If I were you I'd just stay easy on it and take ibuprofen or some other anti-inflammatory to work it out. However, it could be a minor fracture and you could have problems later on... Doctors are always great, granted you have health insurance. Although they are generally useless when it comes to spraining stuff, but great for prescribing painkillers!

Haha, I don't want any pain killers, as it's not too painful if I'm just walking or chilling out. I just know I couldn't ride on it right now. I have health insurance so maybe I'll give the doctor thing a shot.
The weird thing about it is sometimes it spreads up my shin (Like shin splints) or down into the top of my foot. But for the most part it's on the right to front side of my right ankle. If that helps anyone figure out what it is.

That's right where my sprain was. I'd say it's just a severe sprain, but I'm no doctor, so yeah. My ankle took like, 7 months to go back to it's original shape... Pain stopped all together after a month, but, ankle stayed funny looking.

GO TO THE DOCTOR!!I wanna see you ride behind that beauty!!If it's sprain fine,but if it's something else better to find out now than find out later that it's something worse and keep you out longer.

Im 3 months out of an ankle injury. Its still swollen and gives out every once in a while and hurts when it gets tweaked. Doc said I may need surgery but I will probably hold off till after summer. I just give it a good tape job before I get out on the water and it gives it some nice support

Alright Jay.. Ill go to the doctor and get all healed up. As long as you and Scott come out and ride in the cold with me. Im reading all of these " I sprained my ankle 6 months ago and I still can't ride." horror stories and they're scaring me.

I say better safe than sorry.If it's worse than a sprain it could end up nagging you for years.You have insurance so it can't hurt to get it looked at.besides i'm sure none of the advice you're going to get here is from an actual medical profesional.OH and you can put money down that I'll have my old ass right in that cold water to try that new 210 out!

Dont wanna scare you anymore but not this past 4th of july but the one before I tweaked mine on a simple w2w and then like an idiot jumped off the boat onto the dock and it suddenly swelled up and turned blue. Well 18 months later mine is still tender when I step a certain way. Ive had doctors tell me that it takes at least 3 months for it to fully recover. I still ride with a cheapo neopreane ankle brace from walmart when I ride. The taping just gets old a couple times of doing it in a day. It probably would be a good idea to at least get an xray to make sure there isnt a hairline fracture. Good luck man and get things taken care of before the summer is in full swing.

Well I took Jay's advice and got into a pretty well known local sports doctor, I'm scheduled for Saturday. He has some pretty unconventional treatments, but I'm thinking he should be able to heal me up fairly quick. So I'll keep everyone posted. Thanks for the advice.

Honestly Nick, the best thing you can do to recover as quickly as possible is go to physio.

i've had more ankle injuries than i can count... sounds like a high ankle sprain for sure... good thing that you're going to the MD to make sure nothing is broken... which from my experience is a very real possibility w/ high ankle sprains... bad news is... a high ankle sprain is the worst way you can sprain your ankle... i've been told by several MDs (including Andrew and Lemac... both world renowned orthopedic surgeons) that i would have been better off long term w/ a break vs a high sprain

anti-inflammatorys are good for the swelling but i try to take as few as i can due to long term effects of taking pills (just a personal thing)... go ahead tand go get you a nice ice pack and an ace bandage b/c you're most likely going to be making regular use of these two items in the evenings after a hard day of riding...

a few exercises you can do to help...
-sit w/ you calf propped on something and your foot free to move in the air and write your ABCs and 1-10 in the air w/ your big toe
-stand w/ your toes against a wall and raise up on your tip toes slowly w/ both feet and try to push your weight over your weaker ankle until you can completely do this on your "bad" ankle... this will most likely take some time and don't try to over do it
-calf extensions w/ a surgical band... just sit flat on the floor w/ a stretchy band of some kind and keep good tension on the band while pushing your toes away from your body
-take a stretchy band and tie it around a bed post or something of the like so you have a loop and sit w/ it looped around your foot and pull laterally w/ your foot while keeping your heel stationary
(sorry these are much easier to show someone how to do than explain on a wakeboarding forum)

hopefully you can get that thing back to health w/o recurrence... i've rocked both of mine several times each and it sucks... i don't play basketball or softball or tennis (ie any cutting sports) w/o being braced up... good luck and protect that thing for the next few months... they're critical healing time for those tendons

Patrick, I understand the exercises you're saying, Thanks. I've been doing the ABC one and the toe raises. I don't have a band or else I would be doing those too, but I think the doctor is giving me one tomorrow when I go.
The past two days the ankle has been feeling real good. There's minimal pain with stretching it now but there's still some tightness. I don't doubt that I'll be able to ride when the boat gets here (7 weeks from now) I guess my biggest concern should be if it will be strong enough to prevent from injuring it easily.
I'll check in tomorrow and let you know what the doctor says about it.

you need to see someone who does ART active release techniques. or an osteopath. take fish oils- at least 6 a day. try to find 024. google it. i sprained my ankle 1st day at the wakeboard camp a few years ago. i took about 12 fish oils, sprayed 024, took about 4 grams of vitamin c. the next day i was ok. i had to use an easier binding to get in and out of, but the campers were amazed because the night before i was limping badly, the next day, no limp.

The guy I'm going to does the same thing. My buddy had an injury during his wrestling season, the doctor put him on a bunch of fish oil, tons of vitamins and natural stuff and a diet, He was wrestling again in no time.

the nutrition part is important. you have that covered. you need an ART therapist to work the tendons and ligaments and remove the adhesions or you will have ankle sprains the rest of your life. check out www.activerelease.com , or http://www.frequencyspecific.com/index.htm .
tons of pro athletes use one or the other or both. check out the sites. there is also MAT . but i am not that familiar with it. tho i have heard good things about it. i fix athletes for a living. i had a guy from the eagles on crutches 8 weeks out of the 2005 superbowl with a peronial tendon problem. he played no problem. and he was told before i started on him he needed surgery...... well bs. i only treated him 4 times.

Conclusion is a mild high ankle sprain. He says about 2 months of healing (should put me right on schedule). Did some laser therapy and some other weird stuff on it.Has me taking 8 fish oil tablets a day and a whole bunch of other vitamins. Good new I guess.

Nice,glad it turned out ok.We'll be riding behind that sweet 210 as soon as all this frozen crap is gone.

ah yes, i forgot about the erchonia laser. 1 of my friends has one. very good. but if you get another sprain, take my advise and get someone to do ART on it. dr leahy the inventor of ART always talks about why ankle sprains return in the lowerbody ART classes.
good luck!