How I Fixed My Ankle Pain
I hurt my ankle a few days ago, just walking! To be fair, it was a much longer walk than what I'd been used to lately, but still kind of embarrassing since I wasn’t doing anything “cool” like… playing frisbee golf or… or whatever “the kids” are into these days. And I'm not even sure at what point I injured it, but by that evening I couldn't walk on it anymore. And the next day it was the same, so I knew I had to do something about it.
Ankles are weird - it's hard to tell sometimes exactly where the pain is coming from, especially when it's you diagnosing yourself. But the nice thing when it comes to fixing your ankle with exercise (because needling your ankle with acupuncture needles is awkward, to say the least) is in my opinion, that you have generally only two choices: the injury is on the outside of the ankle or the back of the ankle. Now, you could of course say "well what about inside and front parts of the ankle" and you're not wrong when it comes to where the pain is originating. But to fix the pain with exercise, you've only got two muscle groups the work with - and technically one group is on the side of your lower leg and the other is on the back of your lower leg. (For anyone with a knowledge of anatomy, we’re talking about your peroneals and your calf muscles).
So my best guess was that the injury was on the outside of the ankle (aka the peroneals). So what is the best course of action, knowing this? Well, of course seeing a physiotherapist or chiropractor at Yellow Gazebo would have been a good start. Even seeing one of our acupuncturists, osteopaths, or massage therapists would have been a good idea too. “But,” I heard myself saying, “can’t you just fix it yourself? Aren’t you the guy who writes all these blog posts and makes all these videos for the clinic talking about injury and caring for injury with exercise?” I mean, I also talk about mental health, but sure, yeah I do that.
So, applying the principle of “stretch the injury and strengthen the opposing muscle group,” I decided to do some calf raises and stretch my peroneals. Again, I could have also needled myself at this point, if only to loosen my peroneals further, but by this point I was basically experimenting on myself (no, I don’t recommend you do this unless you are also a health care practitioner).
And it worked! After a couple of days, I’m feeling no pain anymore. It seems like the easily-come-by injury was also an easy-to-fix injury.
So what’s the takeaway from this? Well, surely it’s not that we should experiment on ourselves - as I alluded to I am a health care professional with lots of knowledge and experience. But I think we can safely say that exercise is an AMAZING way to get healed from injury! Which is why it’s SO important to see us when you’re in pain - your GP might prescribe some pain pills that will certainly help dull the pain, but to regain your previous strength and ability you’re going to need more than that. And oftentimes, if you tackle the injury early on, we’ll be able to help you fix it that much faster.
The human body is a miracle of evolutionary development, but it’s not a mystery in basic management.
Be well, and take care of that ankle pain, please!
If you’d like some more information, would like to book a free consultation, or would like to go ahead and schedule an appointment at Yellow Gazebo, please give us a call at 416-909-2334, email us at info@yellowgazeboclinic.com, or use the online booking link below. We’ll be happy to help you get on your way to optimum health.
