You have two main choices if you have a sprained ankle. You can ice and rest or you can rehab. Want the best of both worlds? Ice for about 2 days, but start your rehab right away! Ice has only been shown to be clinically effective at reducing swelling for the first 48 hours, so ice in the beginning is effective, but not this 2 day window. Most people just rely on rest and ice for weeks. they miss the whole boat on rehab and end up suffering with pain and swelling for weeks or even months!
Sprained ankle rehab means you do much more than stick your ankle in an elevated position and ice it. It means, stretching gently and strengthening the ankle ligaments. It means working out the scar tissue that develops so it doesn’t harden in and around the ankle joint. It means taking an active role in the healing process. And this is absolutely critical if you want to not only heal quickly, but also completely.
If you merely rest and ice your ankle, it will not heal completely. Your ankle will retain scar tissue and also remain weak and inflexible. That means you may get another sprained ankle very soon, especially if you play sports. On top of that, your speed and lateral agility will be severely diminished. And even if you don’t play sports, you may end up with ankle pain for months or even years if your ankle does not heal properly.
Sprained ankle rehab is the answer to this problem. It gets in there and properly and fully heals the ankle. It heals things you won’t even be aware of, like neuromuscular damage. Your body will want to protect the injured ankle joint and you are going to gently but consistently keep that sprained ankle moving, because it will respond incredibly well to rehab.
It is amazing, but people are consistently shocked at how much better they feel in such a short period of time. In fact, it has become routine for people to heal a sprained ankle in about a week instead of the ordinary time period of 4-8 weeks with just rest and ice. We highly recommend you get a good sprained ankle rehab program and put it to work for yourself. You will see and feel results very quickly that will pay off big time in the long run.
