Sprained Ankle Still Swollen After Nearly 2 Months

by Jackie

While running on an uneven trail I rolled my ankle.

I iced and elevated it immediately after, but the next few days I unfortunately did not take care of it like I was supposed to.

The next few days it became incredibly swollen and became bruised around the entire foot.

I went to the doctor about 5 days after the sprain happened and got x-rays.

Luckily, it was just a bad sprain and he said I would be able to get back into running slowly within a week.

This was about 2 months ago, and I have slowly gotten up to 2-3 miles every other day to every 2 days.

I wear an ankle support brace every time I run and try to ice it as much as possible, but it is still swollen around above the bone on the outside of my foot, and sometimes I feel some pain as well (kind of a throbbing feeling versus the stabbing pains I felt when I first sprained it).

Is this normal, or should I go to the doctor?


Answer by Dominique:

Jackie,
Thanks for your running injury question.

Sprained ankles and pulled muscles can hurt pretty badly. The pain and the swelling can stay for a long time, especially if you continue putting pressure on it. Walking and running are not helping the ankle.

You started off well. Icing and elevating it. Going to the doctor to get it checked out. Happy to hear the X-rays are showing that the bone is not broken.

I am not saying the doctor got it wrong, but given the length of time you have been dealing with this, maybe you had a small hairline fracture which did not show up or was not noticed?

One thing that really puzzles me is.... why are you running at the moment?

You are not giving your ankle a chance to heal. If I were your coach I'd tell you to stop all running now and let the ankle heal. If the swelling does not go down over the next two weeks, go see a doctor and get it checked out again.


Don't run until the swollen ankle has healed. I know that is terribly frustrating. You may have signed up for a race, finally feel like your running is to the right level and now you need to take a break. I get it.

It's happened multiple times to me as well and it is hard.

But the way you are going is not fixing the problem. A sprained / swollen ankle might also make alternative activities like bike riding and rowing hard to do, so you may just have to take complete rest, and first get your body right, before getting back into your running training again.

Best of luck,
Dominique