How long does it take to recover from a sprained ankle?

Patients with ankle sprains will be very curious about their recovery period. In fact, this depends on the severity of each person's sprain. If the sprain is relatively mild, you can walk at the time. In this case, as long as you pay attention to rest well, you can recover quickly. If the sprain is severe, swelling will occur immediately and you will need to take good measures to reduce the swelling and relieve the pain, which is a relatively long process. This article introduces the four stages of recovery for an ankle sprain. Let’s take a look.

4 stages of recovery from an ankle sprain

Acute stage

Generally, during the acute stage, the ankle has just been sprained and is beginning to reach its peak of swelling and pain. At this time, you should pay attention to preventing excessive ankle movement and rest to reduce ankle bleeding and swelling. If conditions permit, you should also apply ice to the ankle to help reduce blood flow, reduce swelling and relieve pain.

Subacute phase

Generally, after entering this stage, you can do some light exercises, which can reduce the muscle strength of the ankle joint muscle group and maintain the range of motion of the ankle joint, reducing the formation of scars. Common exercises include forward and backward flexion and extension exercises, isometric contraction exercises, etc.

Note: Exercise in the subacute phase should be moderate, and the exercise program can be repeated multiple times with "comfortable and painless" as the basic criteria.

Recovery period

The general sign of entering this recovery stage is that the sprained foot can stand normally without pain and can walk normally.

Note: After entering the recovery period, you can use rubber bands, dumbbells, barbell plates, and strength training equipment to train the ankle muscles to help the ankle joint recover strength as soon as possible.

Functional training period

Generally, after entering the functional training period, the ankle sprain has recovered, but regular ankle strength training and foot proprioception training are still needed to further strengthen the ankle function.

Note: When performing ankle functional training, you can use a bandage to limit the ankle's range of motion to reduce the risk of injury.