[pct-l] Ankle Pain

[jjolson@uwyo.edu (Jeffrey Olson)]

I have sprained my ankle playing basketball and tennis for years.  This last
spring I turned it badly on the fourth of July, used glucosamine/chrondriton
(sp), a topical creme that penetrated to the tendons, and kept it up as much as
possible.  On July 27 I headed out on the CDT for a 25 day section hike.

On the 8th day I turned the ankle again, even worse than the month before, ate
lots of ibuprofen, iced it in a spring, and two hours after turning it, walked
six miles out.  It would have been better to spend a couple days in this
gorgeous river valley.

That was the first week in August and it healed well enough to play raquetball
this winter.  I tweaked it, not spraining or turning it, and it was another six
weeks before the pain went away.

The x-ray shows pits and ridges on the bottom of the calf bone, with the same
on some of the smaller bones.  The doctor recommended surgery.  Maybe later...

Right now I am back to full strength with the underlying knoweldge it can go at
any moment, while walking, while lying in bed and rotating it, etc.

I now wear the lightest possible lace up brace, and that keeps me from turning
it so far I have to stop exercising.  I also continue to take the
glucosomine/chondriton (sp) stuff twice a day.  When hiking I tape up the ankle
with 2" athletic adhesive tape and wear the brace.  No blisters from the brace
yet.

Eventually I'll have to have the ridges and pits evened out, but I don't trust
doctors who are in a hurry, who don't ask me what I am looking for from their
examination, who go straight to surgery as an answer.  So that means travelling
to a larger city than Laramie...

Jeffrey Olson
Laramie, Wyoming

CharlieJones@aol.com wrote:

> Has anyone out there ever experienced 'ankle pain, probably from twisting,'
> while hiking? The pain seems to be on the outside of the ankle (not the
> tendon of the foot). I don't recall the exact moment that it started, but
> suspect I may have done something unusual to it when I was hiking
> cross-country in the local desert mountains.
>
> If so, is there any fix for it other than to stay off it for a while?
>
> Thanks for any ideas/opinions of what's wrong and how to fix it.
>
> Thanks,
> Charlie
>
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