Preventing Chronic Joint Instability After a Severe Ankle Sprain

Your ankle is a vital part of how you stand, walk, and run, providing unique movement (plantar flexion and dorsiflexion, allowing upward and downward motion) and stability. It’s a type of synovial joint, which needs to be able to move freely, and if it gets injured, mobility and stability can be compromised.

A lot of problems can cause ankle pain, including musculoskeletal damage like sprains which affect the ligaments in the joint. These aren’t generally severe problems, but if the damage to the tissue is bad enough, it can cause complications like chronic instability over time. 

To understand how to avoid this issue, let’s look at what often leads to ankle sprains, how it can become a chronically unstable joint, and what measures to take to keep it from happening.

If you live in the Fort Worth, Texas, area and you’re dealing with ankle pain you want to avoid getting worse, Dr. Joseph Daniels and his team at Southwest Orthopedic Associates can help.

Causes of ankle sprains

Your ankle has three main ligaments: the lateral, syndesmotic, and medial (deltoid). They connect the lower leg bones to your foot, along with other muscles and tendons. Stretching them too far can cause bruising, tenderness to the touch, popping noises, the inability to put weight on the ankle, and joint instability. 

Overstretching can result from several actions, such as walking on uneven surfaces, rolling or twisting your ankle, and awkward impact from jumping. Intense physical activity can be the culprit, but this problem can also easily result from simple movements while standing.

How they lead to chronic joint instability

As the name suggests, repeated injuries to the ankle can make them less stable. If you have instability, you’re going to experience an increase of pain, tenderness, swelling, bruising, and ankle turning or rolling. 

A common reason for the instability problem becoming chronic is not letting the ankle heal properly, which doesn’t give the ligaments adequate time to become more stable. The more unstable it becomes, the more frequently the problems return and persist.

Ways to avoid it 

When dealing with any injury, the best way to prevent it from getting worse is to stabilize it and allow it time to get better. The PRICE (protection, rest, ice, compression, elevation) method is a commonly recommended way to manage sprains, especially within the first 48 hours of injury. 

Getting a brace or splint to stabilize the ankle and using crutches to prevent stressing it while its healing is important throughout the process. You should continue to use these tools until we determine you can remove them and put weight back on the joint. 

The timeframe it takes to heal will depend on the severity of the sprain, but once the swelling goes down, and your ankle has had time to mend, we can help you with physical therapy to restore stability and keep you from injuring it again.

Joint injuries are always problematic to navigate, and if yours affects your ability to walk, it can be extremely frustrating. Make an appointment with Dr. Daniels and Southwest Orthopedic Associates today to assess the extent of the problem and let us help you get back on your feet.