chronic ankle injury - question for Syncro?

Hey Guys,

I'm looking for a bit of guidance from the NSMB fitness crew. In 2004 I crashed hard in a boulder pile and did a number on my right ankle. I was young and dumb and followed the ice and Vitamin I program for a couple of weeks… then more or less carried on as usual - ride, run, climb, whatever. Rear view mirror says I had clearly torn ligaments or other somesuch damage. My ankle was like nerf football - this wasn't a sprain.

Since then it's always been a bit of a minor bother - but small tweaks, but slight enough to ignore until Spring 2014. For whatever reason - time worked it's magic and the ankle refused to cooperate… high pain/zero mobility.

So because the mobility and pain was compromising my running in a large way, I went to a sports chiro who broke down a bunch of scar tissue (I cried, it was like she was taking her daddy issues out on my ankle) and improved my mobility by 80% - I could run again!

Here we are summer of 2015, I'm older and wiser and ramping up my trail running milage. I need to fix this, but I don't want swing cats and spend wasted hours and cash searching for the answer.

What's the most reliable diagnosis path you fine NSMBers can recommend? Let's pretend money is no object (it is, but whatever).

Once I'm diagnosed, I'm happy to shop that to a health care team with a mix of physio and chiro.

Cheers,

Praying for Rain!

Why not continue with the sports chiro that got you back to 80%?

Often these things require a few treatments to get healed up.

ART is typically painful but gets results (which sounds like what you had).
If you want another opinion try the Optimal Performanc Clinic thurlow and Hastings.

They are my very first call when I get injured and they get me back on my feet in record time.

1. deal with the scar tissue to get mobility back - done!
2. do strengthening and mobility exercises for your ankle 4-7 times per week for the rest of your life.

if you tear an ankle good, those ligaments and tendons aren't regrowing themselves and you're way past the point of any surgery - the ends of those frayed ligaments and tendons are now dead and surgery won't be able to put them back together.

do standing calf raises on the edge of a stair on one foot and try not to hold on to anything. if you need to use your fingertips to help with balance and then work up to trying to do them without holding on to or touching anything. do a 2-3 sets everyday or every second day. get some resistance bands/tubing and tie one end to something heavy and the other end make a loop for your foot. in a standing, laying or seated position rotate your foot to the middle of your body and then do some going away from the middle of your body. do 2-3 sets these everyday or every second day as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DPwxb0KKQA

short of that on higher risk activities wear a lace up ankle brace.

Hmm ankles ankles ankles…
Well I've done pretty much the most damage a person can endure to their ankles and still remain able to walk.
Keep it up with the chiro, stretch lots and keep doing your strength exercises. At this point there's nothing that can be done to get back to 100% and remain their. Look into getting natural anti imflamitorys and things to help with circulation.
This will now be a lifetime routine.

we need bc_andrew in here to tell us about anel stretching.

we need bc_andrew in here to tell us about anel stretching.

Hmmmm, anel stretching, eh?

Hmmmm, anel stretching, eh?

that's the joke - it was before your time…

probably the best typo ever here on teh nsmb

You may still be able to heal further. Look into massage with a hard object like the handle of a butter knife or a blunt stick and start getting into the difficult spots to break up the scar tissue on the ligaments. Stretch, massage, ice. This really works. It's uncomfortable but the results are very worth it. Good luck:fix:

Run when chased otherwise ride

Look into prolotherapy to tighten the remaining tissue that's left.

…a golden oldie that one! :lol:

Thanks for input guys, I'll take all of that into account for this journey.

I guess what I'm hoping to do is have the ankle assessed by some sort of medical professional and have that individual say "Your ankle has x y and z fucked up - here's what I suggest you do to repair it."

I do want to go back to my chiro for sure, she worked magic - but I want to go back to her with a game plan. I'm pretty sure the active release technique will be part of my repair.

But where do I start? My personal doctor can't see past her prescription note pad, I guess I could go knock on doors in Whistler (haven't had much luck here in Squamish) and see if there are any sports clinics up there would have some advice.

On a related note, I've got some tendonitis in my wrist that acts up. Short of rest (not riding my bike) what can I do?

On a related note, I've got some tendonitis in my wrist that acts up. Short of rest (not riding my bike) what can I do?

This may or may not be relevant to your tendonitis, so consider it nothing but an anecdote, but I was diagnosed with rotator cuff tendonitis by my GP. She told me to rest the arm, don't carry the groceries even, and don't count on it getting much better, ever. Bummer!

Physio said exercise, build up shoulder strength and mobility. Fitness coach said pretty much the same. Rheumatologist said pretty much the same. And all 3 of them prescribed very similar exercises - the main rule was not to trigger the pain, but do everything else possible for strength and flexibility.

End result is tendonitis is WAAAY better, nearly gone, and it was really awful around Christmas 2014.

So - you might want to at least consider wrist mobility and strength exercises. Not likely to have any downsides, and maybe some upsides.

I am slowing learning that for almost any injury/aggravation, rest really is not the best thing, or at least should not be the only thing.

I'm currently going through a heel issue.

My physio guy's guess is my Tib/Fib is not tracking on my Talus correctly. My words, not his so I might be butchering it.

I've fucked this particular heel a number of times snowboarding and mountain biking. That said, I wanted to lose a bit of flab and hit the elliptical hard and long for a week straight. By the fifth day it was sore. Gave it a day or two of rest and then did some deadlifts and the fucker was off the hook the next day. There were no sharp pains whatsoever during any training.

Fast forward two months after of taking it easy, physio man tells me to do exercises a, b and c, but most importantly to foam roll my calf as it's one giant ball of bonded tissue (and pain when it's anywhere near that roller).

If there's one thing I'm working on for the rest of this year is to try and have no trigger points anywhere on my body. I'm pulling this one out of my ass but I really think neglecting this is what makes you move like an old fuck.

If you can support your body weight on every part of your calf on a roller, try a lacrosse ball. Again, if you have no trigger points anywhere using that, well, fuck you. Sell me your calves. :fruit: