Had a great ride yesterday, new riding buddies, trails that I hadn't previously ridden, Warm weather and dusty dry trails. Got home very happy with my morning and went to get a beer out of the fridge in the shed. stepped down and put my foot in a hole that my dog had dug, turned my ankle right over as I was only in flip flops.
Cue me crying out in pain and falling to the ground.
After a swift trip to A&E and an xray it is thankfuly just badly sprained.
Very swollen now and off work today. I am walking with crutches. How long will i be off of my bike?
Your experiences very much appreciated.

I sprained my ankle and couldnt walk for a matter of weeks, and then couldnt walk comfortably for 9 months.
it still hurts like sin when its cold, and it happened 3 years ago now.

i went back a few times to the doctors, and he said" you would have been better off snapping your leg, they only take a few months to mend, heres some painkillers"

of course, the variables are much greater, I landed on my one foot INCREDIBLY heavily (caught myself from a front wheel slide at about 30mph, with my leg locked out so my knee couldnt bend) and shredded the sinovial lubricating strip inbetween the bones.

i think just go with it. not a lot you can do.
i BELIEVE the more you can work it, the quicker it will heal. so try to use it as normaly as possible….

good luck!!!

erm…..my partner sprained her ankle badly playing netball a couple of months ago & it's still pretty sore with limited movement.

She was told to get off crutches as soon as possible and keep it elevated whenever she could. I think the main problem with her ankle now is that she gets pains in her achilles tendon. I think she's going back to the docs soon.

Cycling is different to walking though (duh) – and the biggest issues I would have thought would be ankle mobility (range of movement) and waiting for the swelling to go down enough to get your riding shoes on.
Give yourself the speediest recovery by taking regular anti-inflammatories, keeping your foot raised whenever possible & ice it a few times a day. Probably also worth moving your foot around to stop it from seizing up.

Depends. On lots of things. Get on the ice, get off the crutches would be my advice. Stress it a bit, you'll know when you've done too much. But do the rehab when you can in the evening, it really helps in the early days. RICE. And be prepared to re-injure it – it'll all have gone horribly slack 🙁

Tom, hopefully you will be back on the bike soon, but iv a feeling you wont be up for another ride before im off to Uni 🙁

We will have to wait till im back for xmas, bet it wont be quite so dry and dusty more wet and muddy but still good fun. Another good reason for our SS 😉

Take it easy mate and watch where your going 😀

I did mine a week last thursday, took 24hrs a near total rest as I could manage, and as many ice packs as possible and went out for a gentle ride on the saturday.
My mate (who handily happens to be an A&E nurse) told me to rest for a day then do as much as I can on it (within reason obviously).
It still feels a little odd and the bruising still hasn't gone, but I am out on the road bike and will be riding some fun stuff all weekend.
I am hopefully getting a very good ankle support that will stop me going over on it before I get the full strength back.
Will see but sod it I am not spending my life sat around moaning about a painful ankle.
Another tip Ibuprofen – will get the swelling down a bit more and works well with the ice packs

I mangled my ankles ligaments snowboarding. I had a set of these lying about and they are great.

http://www.alsgym.co.uk/hanuthai-black-elasticated-anklets-p-90.html

I doubled them up at first, they are very strongly elasticated so they keep any swelling right down and give a lot of support. If they pinch wear them over a sock.

You should still be icing it, keeping it elevated where possible, and making sure the circulation isn't compromised, but you should be able to keep it mobile.

Depending on how you injured it you might be better on flats for a while.

Did the same thing 3 months ago. Went out the back door and turned my ankle …bang ouch. Managed to just about ride the next day on full suss bike (7" travel) on an XC ride! As said anti inflammatories are good but it is taking its time. Luckily I use flats so when im jumping/rough bits I can put the pedal further back which takes some strain off..

A&E nurse told me just to go home and rest when i tore my hamstring in January. I was in agony. Luckily saw a Doctor the next day & had more than 3mths intensive physio which sorted it. Unfortunately it seems the person in A&E wasnt familiar with sports injuries…I wish I had iced it /& taken anti inflammatories immediately…

I'm currently off work with a sprained shoulder (2nd week) As the Doc and physio both said in A&E Good news you didn't break anything Bad news tendons/ligaments can take as long as broken bones to heal 🙁

'twisted' mine in April 2007, still not right now, turned out the liggerments pulled two little bits of bone off. It was still swollen 6 months after doing it and feels a bit week still. Yes, many times you would actually of been better off breaking the thing, in fact when i broke the other ankle it was fine within 6 months, sprained one still bad. Remember the RICE thing thou, should do it as soon as you do it, not try and do a road race the next day with it strapped up and dosed up on painkillers, a very very very stupid thing to do! Not that i would. 😳

I think cycling will be less of an issue than walking or running.

When I did mine I was 3 months before I could run again, 9 months till I walked without a limp but I was riding a bike in a few weeks

Its one for " exercise within the limits of the pain"