How to treat a sprained ankle in Grand Rapids, MI

If you’ve rolled or twisted your ankle and have swelling, tenderness, redness and pain, you know that you might be dealing with a sprain.

Sprained ankles are common injuries, especially in athletes. It can take weeks or months to recover from a sprained ankle depending on its severity. Fortunately, there is treatment for sprained ankles that can help improve the quality and speed of your recovery.

How to treat a sprained ankle

When you’ve sprained an ankle, you need to remain calm and follow these steps to start down your path of recovery:

• Rest — If you think you have the signs of a sprained ankle, getting off your feet needs to be a priority. Find a comfortable spot where you can lie down and prop your foot up on a couple of pillows or some other soft elevated object. Elevating the ankle like this helps decrease swelling and pain in your ankle that tends to build after a sprain.
• Ice — While resting, you should apply a bag of ice or a cold pack to your ankle. Wrap the ice in a towel and keep it on your ankle for about 15 minutes. Do not keep it on for longer than 15 minutes because you may cause the blood vessels to constrict. This causes the pain to increase and inhibits your body’s ability to get nutrients and oxygens to the injured ankle.
  After icing for 15 minutes, wait about an hour to begin another round of icing.
• Visit a physical therapist — While resting and icing, you should contact a physical therapist to schedule an appointment for treatment. Physical therapists are licensed health care professionals who specialize in treating injuries and conditions that affect your ligaments, tendons, muscles, bones and joints. Since a sprained ankle deals with all of these, a physical therapist is just the expert you need for treatment.  

At Advent Physical Therapy in Grand Rapids, Michigan, our physical therapists are highly trained in a variety of treatments to help you recover from a sprained ankle, including:

• Therapeutic exercise
• Manual therapy
• Electrical stimulation

Our team can examine the condition of your ankle to determine which treatment methods will be most optimal to include in your personalized treatment plan. If you’ve sprained your ankle, come visit our team for an assessment and treatment.

Visit Advent Physical Therapy in Grand Rapids, MI, for sprained ankle treatment

A sprained ankle isn’t something you should wait out or walk off. Putting off treatment can result in prolonged pain and permanent disability. Our physical therapists at Advent Physical Therapy in Grand Rapids can help prevent that from happening. Contact our team today for more information about sprained ankle treatment or to schedule an initial appointment.