Have you ever rolled your ankle before and been in some extreme pain? Well I’m here to tell you that you could have a much more serious problem than you think on your hands.   I would like to share with you how my rolled ankle led to surgery instead of a wrap.

The first time that I ever rolled my ankle was at the beginning of my freshman year, I was playing basketball with my James, Ian and Caleb at lunch like I normally do at lunch when I jumped up to block someone.  When I came down, I landed on the side of my foot causing my ankle to just fold over,  The right side of my ankle was touching the ground and the left side was sticking straight up in the air.  I was in some of the worst pain that I had ever been in ever in my life.  James and Ian went to get the nurse and she took me inside. 

It hurt extremely bad to walk on it or bend it while I was on my way to the nurse’s office.   Inside the nurse's office, the nurse told me “An ankle sprain is when the ligament inside the ankle stretches in a way that it's not supposed to.”

The next day I went in to the doctor to see if it was broken.  I got what I thought was good news at the time, but it didn’t turn out to be.  He said “It’s just a light sprain you should be fine within the next couple of days”.

That same week I had a football game, and just about the same thing that happened on the basketball court came back to me again on the football field.  The quarterback went to throw a pass and I jumped up to block it, not to long after that I found myself in agonizing pain on the bench.

Once again we went back to the doctor to get his opinion on what I should do.  He suggested wearing an ankle brace to keep my ankle from folding up like it had been. 

Before football practice that day, we drove to the store and got me an ankle brace to keep it safe.

The following spring when practice resumed for next season football season had rolled around, I attended football camp at Western Oregon University with my team.. I was having a lot of fun with my football team, having mini scrimmages with other schools and goofing off with my friends.  The third day of football camp came around and I found myself sad to be going home the next day.  In one of our last scrimmages I had a repeat of that first initial roll.  Jumped, landed and fell to the ground instantly.  This sprain was like none of the other ones I had had before.  I could not walk without feeling extreme pain and nearly falling over.  It was terrible, and this is when I realized that I had a real problem on my hands.

I knew I had to seek the help of a specialist, so we found a really sweet doctor that specialized in ankles.  He was doing some tests on me to see exactly what was going on in my ankle, he was pulling from different spots and asking me if I felt pain when all of a sudden he pulled a certain spot and my whole ankle popped out of socket.  Luckily it went right back into place but when that happened it hurt extremely bad and the doctor said ”That's not supposed to happen”.  He had determined the problem.The good news is that we can fix it, the bad news is that it will be a long road to repair properly.  He told me that one of my lateral ligaments was ripped from the bone and giving my ankle no support, and told me I would need surgery for it to be fixed.

Ankle injuries happen a lot in football and I try to convince everyone I see come out of a game or practice with a sprained ankle to just let it heal. It's not worth playing that next game if it means you will end up having surgery.  I know from my experience that if you don’t let it heal then the ligament will just stretch and stretch until it detaches.  If you ever have an ankle injury, ligament damage is very easy to prevent if you just let it heal.