OT ankle injuries

[MajorDad]

my son is an athlete and is having a lot of problems lately playing basketball and spraining his ankle. he's 5'7, wears size 11 shoes, 12 years old and is growing at a rate of 3+ inches a year.

I'm wondering if the athletes out there could provide me some advice as to how to prevent future ankle sprains. Is there a foot exercise he can do? Any type of machine weight lifting? Wear low tops or high tops shoes? he wears high top Nikes now. is there an ankle brace? Should he see an orthopedic surgeon? Should he run more? heat packs? bengay?

he sprained his ankle several weeks ago, and he keeps respraining it playing basketball. I've almost thought of starting to call him Bouie. We've been trying rest, and those water foot massage things. After several days of rest, he seems to be ok, but the pain keeps coming back. I'm almost thinking he's growing so fast his ankle and feet muscles are just not as strong and built up as they need to be to support the rest of his body. he's very fast, but runs almost like a man on stilts.

i'd like to speed up the process of healing his sprained ankle, but would also like to implement some type of exercise routine to prevent future sprains. any inputs are welcome.

[trwi7]

How long does he usually let the sprain heal? That could be a problem if he's not giving it enough time to heal.

Edit: Bring him to a doctor and give him x-rays to see if he broke a bone or tore a ligament or something like that.

If it's just an ankle sprain then just get an air stirrup or crutches, ice, NSAID's and elevate it above the heart.

Above all though you have to make sure it's completely healed and I'm thinking it's probably not since he keeps re-injuring it. When it does completely heal though high top shoes provide more stability.

[ReasonablySober]

Taping his ankles before going out on the court is a biggie in terms of prevention.

[emunney]

I used to sprain my ankles fairly often. For a while I wore ankle braces to play, but when I go to the gym I always make sure to do plenty of stuff on the wobble boards and balance bubbles, and I haven't had any trouble with my ankles in five years. I think freestanding calf raises off the edge of a step, one leg at a time, also helped. I have a forty pound weight vest that I like to wear for a lot of body weight exercises, but I wouldn't recommend that for such a young kid. Stick to body weight for now and you'll probably be able to prevent a lot of injuries in the future, but I'd get him an ankle brace right away.

Something that could help indirectly is body control. Have him do a lot of core work and hip work, and he'll be able to keep his feet underneath him and minimize the amount of circumstances in which he could sprain an ankle.

I'm an amateur, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but this is what worked for me, and none of it's dangerous.

As far as healing a sprained ankle... that mainly just takes time and rest, in my experience, as long as nothing's torn.

[Chapter29]

I have a very bad ankle which has been sprained more times than I can count, torn ligaments on at least a 1/2 dozen occasions and broke it at least once.

Not much can be done from a preventative standpoint. Tape is ideal, but a pain in the butt. I have a couple of different braces that I use, but I would say the lace up variety is probably the best.

I have never hurt my ankle bad when I had the brace on, though I have tweaked it slightly.

[monitor33]

my son is an athlete and is having a lot of problems lately playing basketball and spraining his ankle. he's 5'7, wears size 11 shoes, 12 years old and is growing at a rate of 3+ inches a year.

I'm wondering if the athletes out there could provide me some advice as to how to prevent future ankle sprains. Is there a foot exercise he can do? Any type of machine weight lifting? Wear low tops or high tops shoes? he wears high top Nikes now. is there an ankle brace? Should he see an orthopedic surgeon? Should he run more? heat packs? bengay?

he sprained his ankle several weeks ago, and he keeps respraining it playing basketball. I've almost thought of starting to call him Bouie. We've been trying rest, and those water foot massage things. After several days of rest, he seems to be ok, but the pain keeps coming back. I'm almost thinking he's growing so fast his ankle and feet muscles are just not as strong and built up as they need to be to support the rest of his body. he's very fast, but runs almost like a man on stilts.

i'd like to speed up the process of healing his sprained ankle, but would also like to implement some type of exercise routine to prevent future sprains. any inputs are welcome.

High tops are a must. There are relatively inexpensive ankle braces that you can buy at sporting goods stores that will help a great deal. The issue is, his feet are growing so fast, you are going to likely out grow those fast as well. But worth it.

As for the physical fitness aspect, it is good to strengthen the calf and shin muscles, and to use a balance board to recoup from injuries.

I tore the ligaments in my ankle twice, and went through physical therapy. The issue that they told me was that after you sprain an ankle, the nerves get a bit "slow" for a while afterwards, and you need to build them back up so your motion is as good as you need it to be. They would have me stand on my ankle (after healing obviously) and then with the other foot, draw a clock...touch my toes to an imaginary 12:00, 1:00 etc... then reverse it. It was one of those exercises that seems so innocuous, but ended up really helping me get back on the court fast.

Also, immediately after an injury, ice usually is the best way to go. Reduces the swelling. Again, while I was in PT, after the first few workouts to get the ankle back, I always started with a warm soak to get the ankle loose before work out, then ice after.

hope that helps...

Anywho, good luck with that.

[trwi7]

To regain range of motion in his ankle you can have him write the alphabet with his foot.

[MajorDad]

he's been giving it 3-4 days rest. I've asked after 3 days if the pain is gone and he says yes. We've tried crutches and also using one of those medical boot shoes. We taped up the ankle and also wore one of those cloth ankle bandages.

he's claiming the pain is very bad on the top of his foot where the foot joins with the leg and on the lower side of the foot between the arch and ankle . but there has never been any swelling. This pain does not seem to me to be a normal sprained ankle. but I'm not an athlete.

he originally sprained it at a tournament where he played 4 games in one day. I think the original sprain came from jumping off a rack of bleachers rather than the game. The shoes he wears are relatively new, but he's worn them in practices this year and for about 2 games before he sprained his ankle. he resprained it in a tournament where he played two games basically back to back on the same day. he has two more tournaments coming up this month that will require him playing 3-4 games in the same day. he's the starting center and normally plays more than half a game.

[trwi7]

Take him to a doctor to see if he broke a bone or tore a ligament. It's weird that it's not swelling though, usually the more severe it is the more swelling there is.

[BuckFan25226]

Well I consider myself the king of ankle sprains. I've probably rolled my left ankle over 15-20 times in the past 6 or 7 years. 3 times x - rays have shown major calcium bulid up which means fractured.

1st thing - I have very flat feet, which will definitely contribute and increase your chances of your ankle rolling. With flat feet you lose some balance and stability, it also causes other problems such as low back pain etc. So I use super feet...http://www.superfeet.com/ . Of course this is only if your son has flat feet. Or on the other end of the spectrum he has very high arches, which cause too much stress on ligaments and toes which will increase chances of ankle sprains and breaks, so check that.


Also, he clearly is growing at a rapid rate. So you're going to have ligaments with a lot of stress on them(as you said) that can't handle the rapid growth rate. So extensive exercisis will be needed to constantly strengthen those ligaments and muscles to catch up to how fast he's growing.

Exercisis - Thereband resistance exercisis.... http://physicaltherapy.about.com/od/ort ... ehab_4.htm

Wobble board - These have helped me more then anything.... http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cyber ... _board.htm

And as far as ankle braces are concerned. ASO's are the only way to go IMO. I love mine. http://www.medicalsourcesllc.com/anklec ... IgodZlcGAQ

Hope this helps.

[MajorDad]

we have good medical insurance and have had his foot xrayed twice - last year and this year without any evidence of anything torn or broken. but it was done by a small town hospital.

where would be a good place to buy a wobble board and ankle braces? We have a Dicks nearby. or better online?

With the ankle brace , should he wear it constantly to help speed up the healing process, or just during games?

I'm headed to the big city tommorow. he doesn't have another game for about a week.

[jerrod]

1st thing - I have very flat feet, which will definitely contribute and increase your chances of your ankle rolling. With flat feet you lose some balance and stability, it also causes other problems such as low back pain etc. So I use super feet...http://www.superfeet.com/ . Of course this is only if your son has flat feet. Or on the other end of the spectrum he has very high arches, which cause too much stress on ligaments and toes which will increase chances of ankle sprains and breaks, so check that.

i'll have to check that out, i have really flat feet but i've only rolled an ankle maybe 3 times and there was never any damage. but i'm up for anything to minimize the chance

[Badgerlander]

I rolled my ankle a few times in high school and once really bad in college playing volleyball-landed on top of opposing players foot. It was still sore a month later, so I went to a chiropractor and he hit it with a spring loaded gizmo and it was instantly better. He said something about the bones in the ankle being kind of free floating (I'm obviously not a doctor). Since then I've been doing a variety of straddle/lunge stretches and my ankles usually pop when I do them. Haven't had a problem since.

[MajorDad]

thanks for the insight.

[BuckFan25226]

we have good medical insurance and have had his foot xrayed twice - last year and this year without any evidence of anything torn or broken. but it was done by a small town hospital.

where would be a good place to buy a wobble board and ankle braces? We have a Dicks nearby. or better online?

With the ankle brace , should he wear it constantly to help speed up the healing process, or just during games?

I'm headed to the big city tommorow. he doesn't have another game for about a week.

First of all, where are you located? The best bet for getting a wobble board is to go through a chiropractor. My good friend happens to be a chioproactor and he did wonders for my left ankle. He hooked me up with the Super feet, wobble board and the therband. He also put me through a couple weeks of the electrical shock treatment.(or whatever it's called).

As far as the ankle brace, which again I strongly recommend ASO's. He should probably wear them around the house for a couple days to get used to them, and to get used to how tight/loose he wants to have them when he plays. As far as wearing them all the time, he definitely does not need to do that. But he can never do enough of the wobble board and theraband exercises. The wobble board and theraband exercisis should become a daily routine for him.

[Bernman]

I'm the king of avoiding sprained ankles. I probably should have sprained them about 30 times considering how many sports I've played over the years and how many times they've awkwardly started to roll. But like driving in the snow, turn ASAP in the opposite direction you're starting to slip, and you can avoid disaster. I don't know if that's teachable or not. I have outstanding reflexes, and have never sustained an injury which affected me beyond that day, while playing a sport. I have chronic knee problems (sublaxation), but they just spontaneously gave out while stretching and walking, probably caused by my oddly shaped Adidas Superstar shoes which threw off my alignment. Anyways, there are reflex training programs which might be an option, but I can't speak to their efficacy.

[MajorDad]

we live near Beardstown, ILL (4,000 pop) which is about 50 miles west of Springfield, IL and about 2+ hours away from St Louis. despite it's stated population of over 150,000, Springfield is really a rather small town when it comes to retail sales. Madison seems like it is twice as big as Springfield when it comes to being able to purchase things. Springfield is definitely not very sports/athlete oriented.