3 Reasons to Evaluate and Treat Ankle Pain Promptly
At Goldsmith Podiatry, we often wish that our Manhattan patients who come to us with chronic ankle pain or discomfort had scheduled an appointment with us sooner. Many people put off getting an ankle evaluated because the pain isn’t unbearable and symptoms such as stiffness, tenderness and occasional swelling don’t seem very serious. However, just putting up with ankle pain and discomfort can lead to way more debilitating problems down the road. Below are three reasons not to wait:
Up to 80% of untreated ankle sprains result in long-term symptoms.
The number one cause of ongoing ankle pain and weak ankles is a previous sprain that never fully healed. Unfortunately, there are many sprains that are never even treated. One reason for this is that an ankle sprain may start to feel better before it is better. People take the cessation of pain as a sign that their ankle has healed and will then resume their daily activities. Ankle sprains usually require exercises and physical therapy to retrain and strengthen ligaments and muscles. Without a full course of treatment and therapy, the result is likely to be lingering symptoms that may range from mildly annoying, to very painful and disabling.
Sprains that are not fully healed lead to more sprains.
An ankle sprain is the result of the ligaments in your ankle getting overstretched. A good way of looking at this is to think about a rubber band that stretches beyond its limit repeatedly. Eventually it will lose its elasticity and no longer come back to its original form. The same thing can happen to the ligaments in your ankle. Your ligaments are looser after a sprain and more likely to give way again. Some people describe this sensation as having “weak ankles.” Without rehabilitating the ligaments (and surrounding muscles and tendons) your ankle is at higher risk for another sprain, which in turns make the ligaments even less elastic creating a bad injury cycle.
Ankle pain may indicate other serious medical issues.
Not all chronic ankle discomfort is due to a sprain. In some instances, a sprain may also have caused a secondary injury, such as a fracture or a break off of a piece of cartilage that is still floating in the ankle. Ankle pain can also signal an Achilles tendon rupture, gout, or nerve compression problems. One more reason why the best plan of action for dealing with ankle pain is to contact our Upper West Side office by calling 212-877-1002 and let one of our podiatrists, Dr. Howard Goldsmith, Dr. Rosanna Troia and Dr. Kristina Ruff get to the root of the problem and prescribe the appropriate treatment.