Your feet and ankles are made of an intricate network of bones, ligaments, and tendons. You rely on your feet and ankles to bear all your weight, so any injury to any part of your foot or ankle-supporting network can be very disabling.
Foot and ankle injuries are often the result of trauma while playing a sport, but they can also happen from a fall or auto accident.
If you’ve experienced an injury to your foot or ankle, or even both, our team, led by expert podiatrists Matthew Hinderland, DPM, Jordan Cameron, DPM, Trevor Whiting, DPM, and Joseph Fleck, DPM, at the Foot and Ankle Institute of Colorado in Colorado Springs, Colorado, wants you to know that you’re in experienced hands.
This month’s blog focuses on common foot and ankle injuries and how we treat them.
A sprained ankle is one of the most common foot and ankle injuries, if not the most common. It happens when your ankle rolls underneath your foot, overstretching and damaging the ligaments that support it. If you sprain your ankle, you may experience ankle pain and swelling.
Typically, ankle sprains heal on their own with conservative home treatment. Utilizing rest, ice, compression, and elevation (RICE) to reduce pain, swelling, and inflammation while your ankle heals should be enough. However, once you’ve sprained your ankle, you’re at higher risk for ankle instability and repeat sprains. If chronic ankle sprains become an issue, physical therapy, custom orthotics, or surgery may be necessary.
Your Achilles tendon connects your calf muscle to your heel bone. Those who play sports are susceptible to rupturing their Achilles tendon, and this injury is characterized by sharp pain and an inability to extend the ankle.
To give your Achilles tendon the rest it needs to heal, your foot needs to be immobilized with a boot, and you’ll need to avoid putting any weight on the affected foot. However, if the damage is extensive, surgery might be needed to repair the torn tendon.
Stress fractures occur when repeated stress and overuse cause bones to bruise or crack. Because your ankle and foot bear so much weight when you’re running or jogging, those bones are especially vulnerable to stress fractures. If you have a stress fracture, you may notice a gradual increase in pain and tenderness around the fractured area.
It’s important to seek prompt care from our team for stress fractures since continued use of the injured foot or ankle could break the bone completely. Similarly to ankle sprains and Achilles tendon tears, you must stay off the affected foot completely while the fracture heals. Ice, compression, and anti-inflammatory pain medications will also help keep swelling and inflammation down while the bone repairs itself.
An ankle fracture happens when you break one or more of the three bones in your ankle.
There are two types of ankle fractures: nondisplaced and displaced. If you have a nondisplaced ankle fracture, it means that no pieces of bone have broken off, and your ankle is still in alignment. However, displaced ankle fractures have free-floating bone pieces and a misaligned ankle.
Nondisplaced ankle fractures only require you to wear a cast and stay off the affected ankle while the bone heals. However, displaced ankle fractures need surgery, so we can place pins and screws to put the bone back together. This encourages proper healing and reduces the risk of complications and ankle issues later on in life.
When you injure your ankle in any way, it makes you seven times more likely to develop arthritis in that joint, even if it heals properly. If arthritis of the ankle develops due to a previous injury, it’s referred to as posttraumatic arthritis. It causes the cartilage in your ankle to wear away, which leads to pain and stiffness.
Different treatments that we offer for ankle arthritis include corticosteroid injections, physical therapy, night splints, and custom orthotics. If these more conservative treatments aren’t enough, surgery is an option for arthritic pain relief.
To receive expert-level care for your foot or ankle injury, simply schedule an appointment with our podiatry team by calling our office at 719-488-4664 or booking online today.
