Last Saturday night, I woke up in the middle of the night with what I thought was a leg cramp. I get those all the time and usually just get up to walk them off. This time, however, when I stood up, I realized my leg had actually been asleep and I came crashing to the floor. One leg ended up underneath me and the other went straight out in front of me. The one that was under me was perfectly okay. It's the other one that's not okay. I'm not sure exactly what happened to it. All I know is that the immediate pain I noticed was in my knee. At that point, I had lost feeling in my foot, so didn't even know that it was hurt (weird, I know, but it was 2:30 in the morning and I was NOT awake lol). Something made a loud pop when I landed but not sure whether it was my foot, my ankle or my knee. When I tried to stand up, my ankle would not bear my weight and my knee felt like something on the inside of it was just not right. So, I sat back down for a minute to regain composure. I was checking out the damage to myself as I sat on the edge of the bed. My ankle had already swelled up quite a bit in a matter of about 10 minutes, my little toe had turned blue, the top of my foot was blue and the side of my foot and around my ankle was blue. I hobbled into the kitchen to ice my foot and sat in the living room until morning. Rather than go to a Dr. that day (it was Sunday), I decided to wait it out and limp around that day. The next day came and it was still very painful but I had toooo many chores to do to just sit around. So I just hopped around and limped when I had to go downstairs or in other places where I couldn't hop lol. On Wednesday, I decided I should see a doc. X-rays were ordered. They took several views of my ankle and my foot. At that time, I was told by an emergency room doc that there were no broken bones. She put an Aircast Ankle Stirrup on and told me to walk on it and it will be fine soon. I told her that my knee felt strange, but she made no comment about that and just blew it off pretty much. So I went home with the Aircast and thought everything would be fine. After having that thing on for only an hour, the top part of my foot was hurting so bad I thought I was going to throw up. So I took that thing off and decided to make another appointment with another doctor. I ended up seeing an old family friend doc here in town. He pretty much hugged me when I walked in. Asked me what happened. Told me to throw that Aircast thing away and get off my foot for 4 days. He wrapped it in an Ace bandage and sent me on my way. I was very grateful that he got me in. However, I'm still not sure that everything's okay with my foot. The family friend doc didn't touch my foot to examine it. He just took my word when I told him it was sprained and did what you normally do for a sprain I guess. That was yesterday when I saw him. Today my foot is Still swollen. On top of it on the right hand side about half-way back (it's my right foot, too) I have a sharp stabbing pain which I hadn't noticed before. I didn't know if someone has overlooked something on x-rays or if I'm just a hypochondriac or what. My foot hurts still. It still looks really gross and I don't know what to do. Should I put that Aircast thing back on? Should I be walking on it? Or should I NOT be walking on it? I'm confused now more than I was and I don't know if I should make another appointment with still yet another dr? I'm not taking pain meds except for Advil and that's only in the evenings when it's really really hurting. I do have medical insurance, but I'm wondering what they're going to think if I go to ANOTHER dr. I don't know what I need to do. Any advice, shared stories of similar experience or any suggestions would be sooo much appreciated. Thanks ahead of time.

I had something rather similar happen to me last May. I somehow tripped down a curved curb and landed on my left ankle. The whole thing got twisted outward on me with the foot underneath me. I forced myself to get up and just about threw up from the pain. When I finally got home from work and shopping, I iced the ankle. The entire ankle and most of the actual foot and some of the toes turned black and blue. No, I didn't bother with the ER as I figured if it was broken it would swell up to the size of a watermelon and then I'd go. (I'm not a doctor person anyway and avoid hospitals like the plague).

Anyway, I would have a lot of pain in my ankle, achilles heel, up and down my calf and into the front and back of the knee. I would just take it easy and not stay on it if I could help it. That was May. I think I finally got an Ace bandage and put it on the ankle in August or Sept. (Yes, I am very hardheaded). I would wrap my ankle and go to work, shop, etc. The ankle, achilles heel, calf pain, knee pain would sometimes wake me up at night. I would take aspirin. It still hurt in October but all the swelling and black and blue stuff went away I would say in Aug.

A friend of mine who's an old foggy like me told me about Mobasyl cream. I think that was around Thanksgiving. It's a topical cream for pain. Bought a tube of that but the pharmacy didn't have it in stock and had to wait a few days. I put that on and it would help quite a lot. I was using the Bengay stuff, Mineral Ice, the whole shebang and all that stuff did was smell with little relief. The Mobasyl didn't smell, make hot or cold and would give me relief.

Today, my ankle still gives me twinges of pain. It's usually at night when I get up to go to the bathroom and when I am sitting down the pain is there in that ankle/calf area and sometimes the knee area. Those incidents are getting less and less though.

I know I really did a number on my ankle for it to have turned black and blue into my toes and the top of the foot. Basically all I could do is not do too much walking or any exercise that involved using that foot. Yes, I have gained a few pounds but I feel that had I kept up with any kind of excessive walking or exercising, my ankle would definitely be still hurting me.

You have the X-Rays to prove that you don't have any hairline fractures, so I wouldn't worry about your ankle being broken. Believe me, you would definitely know the difference as it would hurt so bad you'd see stars, Mars and candybars to put it mildly and aspirin would not help the pain. You just did what I did - sprained the heck out of your ankle.

That particular part of the anatomy takes much longer to properly heal up as you have to remember there are a lot of ligaments and tissue there that was ripped out of place. You will have to do what I did all these months - stay off your ankle as much as possible. It's not easy to do but the more you stay off it, the quicker you will heal.

I also was taking some vitamins to help my system heal itself. I take Vitamin D, C, calcium and magnesium with zinc, and niacinamide. Oddly enough I was on the Adkins Diet when I messed up my ankle and it didn't start to really heal up until I started eating carbs again! I think there is something with the carbs that helps heal the tendons and ligaments in the body. Don't hold me to that, but I find it very coincidental that I didn't really start to heal until I ate more carbs.

You have just started a long rehabilitation of your ankle. Also, sometimes when I would be walking around too much in a store and I would suddenly be hit with a sharp pain on the front of my lower leg! Can't figure that out but that would happen at least once a week for 2 months once I started to feel half way healed. I think it was the ligaments or tendons going back into place. Haven't had that happen to me in about 2 months now.

I am now at the point where I feel that my ankle is about 95% healed. I'll try walking 1/2 mile or so and see how that goes and if I feel okay I'll start using my rebounder for a few minutes a day.

I hope this has helped you understand that you just need to really baby your ankle like I did. And, if you are older like me (I blew past 55 a long time ago) it will take that much longer to heal versus you are say in your 30's or 40's or younger.

Let me know how you fare on your ankle.

Stay off it,no walking for at least 4 days ,and ice every couple of hours for no longer than 15 min and keep it elevated and make sure the ace is firm but not tight.
I have sprained and broken,this sounds like a sprain but the pain is nearly as bad as a break.
Keep it elevated as much as possible,that really minimizes swelling which will ease the pain. Get well soon!

I have a swollen ankle from falling down the stairs just yesterday it happened I didn't go to the doctor as yet what should I do

I am in the process of going through stupid doctors that cannot help me with my Right ankle pain which is getting really bad, I have had it for the past 13yrs had it xrayed nothing no broken bones then I got referred to physio which never helped then orthotic inserts that never helped... I injured it by a 4kg Sliex (Toasted Sandwich maker) which fell on top of the ankle and it swells sometimes and sometimes it becomes quite numb if I am sitting on the bus. I cannot not walk anymore due to the pain but I love walking.. and about 3months ago the pain has decided to go to the knee and I have to keep clicking my foot and my knee so I am going to another physio again.. it is getting the stage where I can no longer stand the pain all the stupid doctors gave me was painkillers never sent me off to orthopedic surgeon or other place. I get like a burning sensation iswell which happens when I walk and have to keep changing shoes like every 3months and also the pain is from the ankle gone through the bone joints and is in the knee.. if anyone has the same explained problem as me let me know..