What should I do if my ankle is swollen after spraining it

It is very common in people's daily lives to suffer injuries to their bodies due to accidents, especially sprained ankles. Generally, the sprained area will become red and swollen. Many patients do not know what methods to use to relieve this situation. So, what should you do if your ankle is swollen?

First, what should you do if your ankle is swollen after being sprained? Spraining your ankle is something that people often encounter in life, which is medically known as "ankle sprain." This type of trauma is an injury in which external force causes the foot and ankle to exceed its maximum range of motion, causing the muscles, ligaments and even joint capsules around the joint to be pulled and torn, resulting in pain, swelling and lameness. Since the normal inversion angle of the ankle joint is much larger than the eversion angle, when you sprain your ankle, the foot usually twists inward and the injured part is the outer ankle. Many people first rub the painful area vigorously, then wash their feet with hot water to promote blood circulation and reduce swelling, and finally force themselves to walk and move while enduring the pain, so as to avoid "stagnating the tendons." But practice has shown that this is inappropriate treatment for a sprained foot.

Second, because the rupture and bleeding of local small blood vessels together with the exuded tissue fluid will form a hematoma, it usually takes about 24 hours to repair and stop the bleeding and exudation. If you rub vigorously, apply hot compresses, wash, or force yourself to move immediately after an injury, it will inevitably accelerate bleeding and exudation while dispersing some of the blood stasis, and even aggravate the rupture of blood vessels, resulting in a larger hematoma, which will make the injured area more swollen and painful. What people often say as "preserving tendons" actually means that soft tissues form adhesions after injury, which affects functional activities. This situation usually occurs in the middle and late stages of the injury. Therefore, limited movement within a few days after injury is usually due to pain, rather than "tendon retention" caused by adhesions.

What should you do if you sprain your ankle and it becomes swollen? Generally speaking, if you do not feel severe pain when you move your ankle, and you can still stand and walk with ease; if the pain is not in the bones but in the muscles, it is most likely a sprain and you can treat it yourself. If you feel severe pain when moving your ankle, cannot stand or move steadily, the pain is on the bone, or you feel a sound inside the foot when you sprain it, and swelling appears quickly after the injury, especially the tenderness point is on the outer ankle or the high protruding bone in the middle of the outer foot, then it is a sign of a serious injury and you should go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment immediately. If you are unable to go to the hospital for the time being due to limited conditions, you can temporarily follow the following methods and then go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment as soon as possible. Use hot and cold compresses appropriately. Hot compress and cold compress are both physical therapies, but their effects are completely different. Blood becomes active when it is hot and coagulates when it is cold. Therefore, when the ruptured blood vessels are still bleeding, apply cold compresses to control the progression of the injury. Hot compress can be applied only after the bleeding stops to dissipate the blood stasis around the injury. Careful readers must be asking, how can we know if the bleeding has stopped? In principle, the boundary is 24 hours after the injury. You can also refer to the following points: First, the pain and swelling tend to stabilize and no longer continue to worsen; second, the feeling of swelling when raising and lowering the affected foot is not much different; third, the temperature of the skin at the injured area changes from being slightly higher than the normal part to being quite similar. These can all serve as a basis for the cessation of bleeding.