1.Is the foot sprain caused by walking and exercising normally the same? How to initially determine its severity? How to deal with mild injuries?
Whether walking, going up and down stairs or playing sports, foot sprains are the most common trauma we encounter. According to statistics, one in every 10,000 people in the United States will sprain their foot every day. But are the injuries caused by walking and exercising the same?
For the same individual, running and jumping is faster than walking, the impulse is greater, and the injury will be more severe. However, for different individuals, the injury caused by the same external force may vary greatly.
An athlete and an inactive old lady twisting her foot while walking down the stairs, the athlete may rest and put a plaster on it and move around as usual; the old lady may ‘break her bones’ and be bedridden for months but have difficulty recovering.
How to determine the injury
If we sprain the foot in the case of speed, the foot is not swollen and not very painful, we may only soft tissue sprain, did not hurt the ligaments; and when we sprain the foot in the running and jumping, the foot immediately swollen, pain can not stand and walk, then we may sprain the ligaments. If the injury is more serious, you may have to go to the doctor.
How to deal with it
If the injury is mild, we can deal with it according to the RICE principles; that is, rest and cold compresses, compression bandages, and elevation of the affected limb. Usually it can be recovered within two weeks, and young people can recover even faster, and often can run and jump again after a day or two of rest. But during the recovery period, such as pain for a long time, can not go down, the damage must be more serious, can not be taken lightly.
2.How to find out whether the ligament is ruptured? How to deal with it at that time?
When we sprain our foot, how do we know if the ligament is ruptured?
If it is an acute injury, the doctor may give us an ultrasound or MR examination, which is a better non-invasive means to diagnose ligament or soft tissue injury. In general, ultrasound is economical and quick and is more often used in outpatient settings.
Doctor’s Reminder
If we do not get timely treatment after spraining our foot; after a period of time, the injury may not be very painful and we may be able to walk slowly; and after some time, we may be able to run and jump. Only when walking on uneven roads, we feel that our feet are weak, and we may sprain once or twice a year. At this time, we often think that the injury has healed, it is fine, no need to go to the doctor.
What we don’t know is that this is often a secondary manifestation of a ligament injury – ankle instability. If left untreated, the ligaments and articular cartilage around the ankle will wear out and degenerate more quickly. It’s like when the belt of a machine is loose and left untreated, the bearings and engine may also develop problems sooner.
How to determine the injury
There are many different ways to diagnose chronic ankle instability, but the easy ones are physical examination and x-ray. When we find that the affected foot is more prone to inversion or anterior displacement like a drawer (calf fixation) than the healthy foot, we may have torn the lateral ligaments of the ankle. Similarly, we can determine if the medial ligament is damaged.
What to do
In acute ligament injuries, as with all acute sports injuries, the initial management principle is the RICE principle described above; after determining the severity of the injury, the patient’s occupation and requirements, rehabilitation conservative treatment or surgery can be performed respectively. In the case of chronic injury, we will have to go to the hospital to do the relevant examination and timely treatment after accurate diagnosis.
3.For ligament rupture, is it troublesome to treat? How to recover? Can I still play sports in the future?
According to the severity of ligament injury, it can be divided into three degrees. Usually, injuries of degree I to II can be rehabilitated and improved. In case of Grade III injury, surgery can be performed when systematic conservative treatment does not work.
How to deal with
Ligaments and tendons are the tendons in what we often call ‘injured tendons’. If they are completely ruptured, it takes three months to fully recover after surgical repair. During these three months, recovery can be carried out in three stages.
In the acute phase, the hemorrhagic swelling of the ankle joint continues, at which time it is treated according to the RICE principle; in the pre-rehabilitation phase, the hematoma is being mechanized, what is needed is to gradually make the ligaments firmly attached and to gradually eliminate the swelling by orderly exercise under the premise of protecting the ligaments of equal length; in the rehabilitation phase, the ligaments have been connected to each other by fibroblasts and are relatively firm, which requires active rehabilitation exercises.
After one and a half months, we can often walk on the ground with the help of a brace or under the protection of a brace, and after three months we should be able to return to a basically normal level of activity.
Can you exercise?
For patients with ligament injuries, it is perfectly possible to play sports after rehabilitation. For example, Ronaldo in Brazil, after the quadriceps tendon rupture, after surgery and rehabilitation exercises, and soon back to the world’s top athletes level.
But for the ligament injury after returning to the field of play athletes or enthusiasts, before the game or sport, warm-up preparations must be adequate, the first exercise must be measured, not too fatigue. For example, Xiao Wang’s foot sprain was diagnosed by ultrasound and MR as a third degree injury to the lateral ankle ligament, and finally, surgery was taken and he returned to normal sports level after three months.