Ankle sprain
This is the most common sort of sports injury and often happens to players of basketball games or American football games. Ankle sprain can still happen to whoever out of carelessness while walking on the road, let fall of his foot into a puddle, or jumped to the ground from an elevated spot. When a sprain of ankle is made, the first thing to do is to stop all ankle activities, and compress with a lump of ice or iced towel upon the injured spot, and that wrapped up in a bandage or an expedient fabric strip, to attain suitable compression. The injured spot will have to be raised high and treatment like this will have to last for not less than 24 hours until the case is taken into the charge of doctor. For the time being, the patient must avoid foot movements, and a pair of crutches must be used if necessary until the foot pain is resolved entirely.
The purpose of referring to a doctor for treatment is to verify if the sprain received is purely a ligament sprain, or complicated with a fracture, exarticulation or otherwise injury of the muscular tendon tissue. Different injury deserves different treatment, lest habitual sprain or exarticulation should develop that would amount to a bigger trouble. In a case of just minor sprain way from the next day heat compressing may be applied to counteract the tumescence and stop the pain by soaking your foot in a basin filled with tepid water, and having it in up-and-down motion on the condition that no pain is thereby caused to it, for approx. 20 minutes each time, 3 to 4 times a day, when the soaking is through compress the wound again to reinforce anti-tumescent effects, the compressing may then be applied with mild massage to foster blood and lymph recycling. Mild sprain will normally be recovered in 1 to 2 week, severe sprain will have to be applied with splinting to protect the joint. As to the most grave injury with the ligament totally fractured compounded with fracture and exarticulation, plastering will have to be applied for fixing for 6 weeks, to be followed up with splinting fixation for another 3 months if necessary. This conservative treatment is deficient in that a rather higher secondary injury rate would follow up, so there is a faction holding that an operation be made in the first 7 to 10 days (the golden period), and that followed up with rehabilitation, and the result would be better. What accounts above all, however, is that a correct and judicious treatment be given to a primary sprain case so that the articulation is stabilized free from recurrent sprains.