February 15, 2024 • 11 mins
Ever found yourself hobbling around after a deceivingly simple misstep? We can relate to that sudden ankle pain that ambushes you mid-run. In our latest episode, I'm joined by my co-host Jeremy Wolf where we peel back the layers on the often overlooked world of ankle sprains and foot injuries. We discuss everything from the alarmingly easy ways we can overstretch our ligaments during everyday activities to the tell-tale signs that distinguish a sprain from more serious conditions like fractures or complete ligament tears.
Navigating the complexities of our foot's connective tissues, Dr. Lauren enlightens us on the precautions and timely medical interventions crucial for those unexpected ankle twists. As avid runners and sports enthusiasts, or simply someone curious about their foot health, you'll find our chat filled with actionable advice. We cover the significance of pain duration as a red flag, the role of diagnostic tools like x-rays and ultrasounds, and the various levels of ligament sprains. So strap on your health-conscious hats, and tune in – your joints will thank you for it.
To learn more, visit: LMDpodiatry.com or contact (954) 680-7133
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the LMD Pediatry podcast.
Trust us to get back on yourfeet.
Here's your host, Dr LaurenDevakarov.
Jeremy (00:15):
Hello everyone.
We are back your co-host here,Jeremy Wolfe, with Dr Lauren
Good.
To see you again, Dr LaurenGood morning.
Good morning.
So thanks everyone for tuningin.
You know we have a runningtheme going here, pun intended,
and it's my running journey.
You know I was running theother day and out of nowhere I
(00:37):
just started getting some painin my ankle and kind of the
lower arch of my foot and it gotme thinking about how I'm
getting old and I'm breakingdown real quickly.
But got me thinking about anklesprains and I don't really know
what that is exactly.
So can you maybe explain what asprain is and how it differs
(00:58):
from other foot and ankleinjuries?
Dr. Lauren (01:01):
Sure.
So what is a sprain?
Right, there's.
So you have ligaments.
Right, we have hundreds ofligaments throughout our whole
body and what ligaments do isthey hold down bone to bone.
So every little joint in yourbody is held together or
(01:21):
anchored with the ligament.
And a ligament is just madefrom this fibrous connective
tissue and it's just supposed tostabilize the joint and hold it
together.
When a sprain happens, in yourcase an injury, what happens is
those ligaments, they stretch.
So, like a regular, boringgrade one sprain is that you
(01:44):
take that ligament and then,instead of it being nice and
parallel and smooth, all of asudden it stretched out a little
.
You know, you can have a gradeone, grade two, grade three
sprain and you could have apartial tear of your ligament.
You have a complete tear.
So all those it's basicallynothing is holding the joint
anymore.
Jeremy (02:04):
So and this could just come, obviously, because I feel
like I didn't even do anythingto create the injury this could
come from just repetitive motion, doing the same activity, and I
probably stretching, as wealways talk about, would help
that.
Dr. Lauren (02:17):
Well, you could have like a like if you were running
.
In your case you were runningor you're, you know, the stair
master or biking, or playingtennis, golf, any of those like
repetitive things, pickleballfor example if you, if your
foot's not very stable when youdo that motion, if it's not held
(02:38):
well in a shoe, for example, oryour entire shoelace is enough,
so you know eventually that youknow that that ligament will
overstretch and that's kind ofthat's probably why you might
not have like a pure sprain.
But you know, the ligamentprobably was like the joint was
(02:58):
a little unstable when you'rerunning and it's overstretched a
little bit and that's why yourankle is hurting.
So that's kind of you know,basic way to explain it.
Jeremy (03:07):
So how can I, or someone who's listening, differentiate
between because I'm justassuming at this point that
maybe, maybe a lot of times, youtweak your ankle, you're like,
oh, I just sprained it.
But how can you differentiatebetween a sprain and something
more serious that could actuallyrequire some immediate tension,
like a fraction of a fractureor like a ligament tear?
Dr. Lauren (03:27):
So it usually depends how long the pain takes
to go away, right.
Jeremy (03:31):
So how long?
How long should it take then?
Because it's been like a weekor so.
I can't.
I still get it when I run.
Dr. Lauren (03:36):
So.
So if it's been a week, youshould see here your local local
foot doctor.
Jeremy (03:42):
Okay, you got to get me in on the calendar.
I got to come see you.
Dr. Lauren (03:45):
So that's when.
That's what happens.
When patients have a trauma,they you know they have a trauma
, they have pain.
If it doesn't go away within aweek or two, then they come in
to get evaluated.
I always get an x-ray to makesure nothing's broken and then,
if the x-ray is broken, ifnothing's broken on the x-ray, I
do a quick ultrasound and theultrasound will show me if
(04:06):
there's a ligament, you know, ifthere's a ligament sprain.
If there's a tendon sprain, youknow your tendons can over
stretch your ligaments, yourligaments can over stretch.
Lots of different things canhappen.
The most common thing I see inyour case for a runner, you guys
usually get a capsular a spring.
(04:27):
A capsular spring is like thesecond joint underneath the pad
of your foot.
That one is where you land allthe time when you run.
So a lot of times if you guysare not protecting the area, you
can have a little sprain or atear there.
Jeremy (04:43):
Yeah, I felt a lot of the pain in this comfort.
Again, out of nowhere, I wasjust running and all of a sudden
it was around the lower anklearea, into the arch of the foot,
and I kept going because I waslike, oh, I can get past this.
And then I got done and now I'mgetting ready for a 5k, I think
next weekend.
Dr. Lauren (05:01):
That sounds like a tendonitis, jeremy.
Yeah, you have the posteriortibial tendon.
It courses through the insideof your ankle, attaches into
your arch and what happens withthat is that is the main tendon
that holds up your arch.
So if you're wearing shoes orinsoles that aren't giving you
enough support, and then you'rea runner, so that that
(05:26):
repetitive motion probably madeyour tendon tired and that's why
it probably hurts worse at theend of the day.
Jeremy (05:33):
Yeah, I mean it just depends right.
When I walk around barefoot itstarts to hurt, but when I have
the shoes on and I walk itdoesn't hurt as much.
But if I start running,inevitably after a few hundred
yards I start feeling a littlebit of pressure on the bottom
and it just gets worse.
Dr. Lauren (05:49):
Right.
So, just like I kind ofanalyzed from where your pain
was, I'm assuming that.
But that's why you shouldalways come in, because it could
be anything and each thing isobviously the best is rest, but
each thing is treated verydifferently.
So if it's just like atendonitis or you have like an
(06:11):
inflamed tendon that's tired,the best, you know, for example,
the best thing to do is justrest it and ice it and compress
it for like two, three weeks andthen if you do have like a
serious sprain, that usuallyrequires some sort of
immobilization for up to sixweeks.
So you know, wearing a brace orsomething like that, a lot of
(06:35):
people get ankle sprains.
You know, I always recommendwearing a brace for six weeks
because you know it takes thatlong for your body to lay down
the foundation for the ligamentto repair itself.
So you know again, there are somany types of injuries and they
all act differently.
They all need to be treated alittle differently.
(06:55):
So that's why it's reallyimportant to you know, if you
suspect some pain hint hint,jeremy, if your pain's not going
away after a week or two, nomatter what you do, it's best to
come in and get some imagingand, you know, have an
examination by your localpodiatrist.
Hint, hint me, so we make surethat your pain's free.
Jeremy (07:20):
I'm glad I know a good podiatrist, because I think a
lot of people suffer from what Ido, which is to say I think
it's probably an ego thing, morefor men.
I get a little pain and I thinkin my mind like, oh, I'm sure
it's nothing, like I don't needto go to the doctor, I'm gonna,
I can walk it off, and then itmaybe it isn't something that's
that severe, and you keepputting pressure on it and then
(07:41):
all of a sudden that turns intoa more severe injury and then
you're out of commission for awhile.
So yeah, I think.
Dr. Lauren (07:48):
I had.
I've been having patients thatthey've been living with their
pain for over a year, year and ahalf.
And then when I do an exam andI see you know all the stuff I
look on the inside.
Guess what?
They're like full of scartissue and it's like harder to
repair, that they're less likelyto respond to basic treatment.
(08:08):
You know what I mean.
So you know.
When you pain is like a reallybig indicator by your body like
please do something about me, soa lot of people think that just
because you know it'll go away,it'll go away and then when it
doesn't go away, they don't wantto do anything about it because
they know they have to keepwalking and they can just keep
walking on the injury.
So that makes it worse.
(08:28):
Yeah, you know, do your stuffto everyone out there and
podcast lands.
You know good neighbors, youknow, don't ignore your pain
because it can be.
It could be something simpleand then it could be something
severe, so you don't want it toend up in some type of
complication.
Jeremy (08:48):
All right.
Well, I am definitely going toschedule a time to come see you
to get this looked at, and Iactually haven't haven't been to
a podiatrist and I can't evenremember the last time I've been
in, so it's probably a goodidea to get a little bit of a
check up.
So you'll be hearing from me,for sure.
Dr. Lauren (09:08):
Do you want to know anything else about springs, or
did we cover everything?
Jeremy (09:12):
I think I got a pretty good handle, unless there was
anything else that you wanted toshare.
Dr. Lauren (09:18):
No, I mean it's, it's pretty basic.
You know, just it's importantto protect your feet with
wearing the right shoes, rightinserts, and if you have an
injury and want to keep going,there are ways to, just you know
, wrap your ankle and wrap yourfeet, back, your toes.
Jeremy (09:35):
I'm going to take a CO tape, right?
Yeah, I'm going to tape it.
That's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to tape it after Isee you.
If you give me, if you give methe green light to run the 5k,
I'll tape that, tape that puppyup.
Dr. Lauren (09:46):
Yeah, it's so.
It's so versatile how wetreated there's.
Like you know, medicine is soadvanced today.
They didn't have an easierstate 100 years ago, when people
kept walking on their injuriesand we didn't have the shoes
that we had, you know, 100 yearsago.
So everything is reallydifferent.
I would say that the mostcommon cause of everybody's
injuries today is because theshoes today are made for foot
(10:08):
size and not for foot type,whereas 100 years ago they were
fitted for the foot.
Every person had their owncustom shoe.
Jeremy (10:17):
You had to go see a cobbler to fit you for a pair of
shoes Exactly, and everyoneneeds to bring back the cobbler.
Dr. Lauren (10:24):
Let's go.
I went to like a museum and Isaw like all these like shoes
and you can tell like eachperson had a unique shape to
their shoe, as do all we today,but all the shoes today are like
massively produced.
Yeah, we've made for cheap,cheaper material, materials that
we're out very frequently and alot of you know, a lot of
(10:45):
people just aren't aware aboutthat.
I have no idea and they don'tknow why they get all these
aches and pains.
Jeremy (10:51):
I mean, it kind of makes sense right, we spend quite a
bit of time on our feet makessense to have a pair of shoes
that supports them properly, andobviously, yeah, it's hard to
come by.
Dr. Lauren (11:01):
you know I do lots of shoe education in my office,
so so keep your, keep your feet,you know, protected everyone.
Jeremy (11:11):
All right, sounds good.
Thank you everyone for joiningus and we will catch you all
next time.
Everyone, have a wonderful dayand take care.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Thank you for listening to the LMD podiatry
podcast.
For more information, visit LMDpodiatrycom.
That's LMD podiatrycom or call954-680-7133.
Welcome to the LMD Pediatry podcast.
Trust us to get back on yourfeet.
Here's your host, Dr LaurenDevakarov.
Jeremy (00:15):
Hello everyone.
We are back your co-host here,Jeremy Wolfe, with Dr Lauren
Good.
To see you again, Dr LaurenGood morning.
Good morning.
So thanks everyone for tuningin.
You know we have a runningtheme going here, pun intended,
and it's my running journey.
You know I was running theother day and out of nowhere I
(00:37):
just started getting some painin my ankle and kind of the
lower arch of my foot and it gotme thinking about how I'm
getting old and I'm breakingdown real quickly.
But got me thinking about anklesprains and I don't really know
what that is exactly.
So can you maybe explain what asprain is and how it differs
(00:58):
from other foot and ankleinjuries?
Dr. Lauren (01:01):
Sure.
So what is a sprain?
Right, there's.
So you have ligaments.
Right, we have hundreds ofligaments throughout our whole
body and what ligaments do isthey hold down bone to bone.
So every little joint in yourbody is held together or
(01:21):
anchored with the ligament.
And a ligament is just madefrom this fibrous connective
tissue and it's just supposed tostabilize the joint and hold it
together.
When a sprain happens, in yourcase an injury, what happens is
those ligaments, they stretch.
So, like a regular, boringgrade one sprain is that you
(01:44):
take that ligament and then,instead of it being nice and
parallel and smooth, all of asudden it stretched out a little
.
You know, you can have a gradeone, grade two, grade three
sprain and you could have apartial tear of your ligament.
You have a complete tear.
So all those it's basicallynothing is holding the joint
anymore.
Jeremy (02:04):
So and this could just come, obviously, because I feel
like I didn't even do anythingto create the injury this could
come from just repetitive motion, doing the same activity, and I
probably stretching, as wealways talk about, would help
that.
Dr. Lauren (02:17):
Well, you could have like a like if you were running
.
In your case you were runningor you're, you know, the stair
master or biking, or playingtennis, golf, any of those like
repetitive things, pickleballfor example if you, if your
foot's not very stable when youdo that motion, if it's not held
(02:38):
well in a shoe, for example, oryour entire shoelace is enough,
so you know eventually that youknow that that ligament will
overstretch and that's kind ofthat's probably why you might
not have like a pure sprain.
But you know, the ligamentprobably was like the joint was
(02:58):
a little unstable when you'rerunning and it's overstretched a
little bit and that's why yourankle is hurting.
So that's kind of you know,basic way to explain it.
Jeremy (03:07):
So how can I, or someone who's listening, differentiate
between because I'm justassuming at this point that
maybe, maybe a lot of times, youtweak your ankle, you're like,
oh, I just sprained it.
But how can you differentiatebetween a sprain and something
more serious that could actuallyrequire some immediate tension,
like a fraction of a fractureor like a ligament tear?
Dr. Lauren (03:27):
So it usually depends how long the pain takes
to go away, right.
Jeremy (03:31):
So how long?
How long should it take then?
Because it's been like a weekor so.
I can't.
I still get it when I run.
Dr. Lauren (03:36):
So.
So if it's been a week, youshould see here your local local
foot doctor.
Jeremy (03:42):
Okay, you got to get me in on the calendar.
I got to come see you.
Dr. Lauren (03:45):
So that's when.
That's what happens.
When patients have a trauma,they you know they have a trauma
, they have pain.
If it doesn't go away within aweek or two, then they come in
to get evaluated.
I always get an x-ray to makesure nothing's broken and then,
if the x-ray is broken, ifnothing's broken on the x-ray, I
do a quick ultrasound and theultrasound will show me if
(04:06):
there's a ligament, you know, ifthere's a ligament sprain.
If there's a tendon sprain, youknow your tendons can over
stretch your ligaments, yourligaments can over stretch.
Lots of different things canhappen.
The most common thing I see inyour case for a runner, you guys
usually get a capsular a spring.
(04:27):
A capsular spring is like thesecond joint underneath the pad
of your foot.
That one is where you land allthe time when you run.
So a lot of times if you guysare not protecting the area, you
can have a little sprain or atear there.
Jeremy (04:43):
Yeah, I felt a lot of the pain in this comfort.
Again, out of nowhere, I wasjust running and all of a sudden
it was around the lower anklearea, into the arch of the foot,
and I kept going because I waslike, oh, I can get past this.
And then I got done and now I'mgetting ready for a 5k, I think
next weekend.
Dr. Lauren (05:01):
That sounds like a tendonitis, jeremy.
Yeah, you have the posteriortibial tendon.
It courses through the insideof your ankle, attaches into
your arch and what happens withthat is that is the main tendon
that holds up your arch.
So if you're wearing shoes orinsoles that aren't giving you
enough support, and then you'rea runner, so that that
(05:26):
repetitive motion probably madeyour tendon tired and that's why
it probably hurts worse at theend of the day.
Jeremy (05:33):
Yeah, I mean it just depends right.
When I walk around barefoot itstarts to hurt, but when I have
the shoes on and I walk itdoesn't hurt as much.
But if I start running,inevitably after a few hundred
yards I start feeling a littlebit of pressure on the bottom
and it just gets worse.
Dr. Lauren (05:49):
Right.
So, just like I kind ofanalyzed from where your pain
was, I'm assuming that.
But that's why you shouldalways come in, because it could
be anything and each thing isobviously the best is rest, but
each thing is treated verydifferently.
So if it's just like atendonitis or you have like an
(06:11):
inflamed tendon that's tired,the best, you know, for example,
the best thing to do is justrest it and ice it and compress
it for like two, three weeks andthen if you do have like a
serious sprain, that usuallyrequires some sort of
immobilization for up to sixweeks.
So you know, wearing a brace orsomething like that, a lot of
(06:35):
people get ankle sprains.
You know, I always recommendwearing a brace for six weeks
because you know it takes thatlong for your body to lay down
the foundation for the ligamentto repair itself.
So you know again, there are somany types of injuries and they
all act differently.
They all need to be treated alittle differently.
(06:55):
So that's why it's reallyimportant to you know, if you
suspect some pain hint hint,jeremy, if your pain's not going
away after a week or two, nomatter what you do, it's best to
come in and get some imagingand, you know, have an
examination by your localpodiatrist.
Hint, hint me, so we make surethat your pain's free.
Jeremy (07:20):
I'm glad I know a good podiatrist, because I think a
lot of people suffer from what Ido, which is to say I think
it's probably an ego thing, morefor men.
I get a little pain and I thinkin my mind like, oh, I'm sure
it's nothing, like I don't needto go to the doctor, I'm gonna,
I can walk it off, and then itmaybe it isn't something that's
that severe, and you keepputting pressure on it and then
(07:41):
all of a sudden that turns intoa more severe injury and then
you're out of commission for awhile.
So yeah, I think.
Dr. Lauren (07:48):
I had.
I've been having patients thatthey've been living with their
pain for over a year, year and ahalf.
And then when I do an exam andI see you know all the stuff I
look on the inside.
Guess what?
They're like full of scartissue and it's like harder to
repair, that they're less likelyto respond to basic treatment.
(08:08):
You know what I mean.
So you know.
When you pain is like a reallybig indicator by your body like
please do something about me, soa lot of people think that just
because you know it'll go away,it'll go away and then when it
doesn't go away, they don't wantto do anything about it because
they know they have to keepwalking and they can just keep
walking on the injury.
So that makes it worse.
(08:28):
Yeah, you know, do your stuffto everyone out there and
podcast lands.
You know good neighbors, youknow, don't ignore your pain
because it can be.
It could be something simpleand then it could be something
severe, so you don't want it toend up in some type of
complication.
Jeremy (08:48):
All right.
Well, I am definitely going toschedule a time to come see you
to get this looked at, and Iactually haven't haven't been to
a podiatrist and I can't evenremember the last time I've been
in, so it's probably a goodidea to get a little bit of a
check up.
So you'll be hearing from me,for sure.
Dr. Lauren (09:08):
Do you want to know anything else about springs, or
did we cover everything?
Jeremy (09:12):
I think I got a pretty good handle, unless there was
anything else that you wanted toshare.
Dr. Lauren (09:18):
No, I mean it's, it's pretty basic.
You know, just it's importantto protect your feet with
wearing the right shoes, rightinserts, and if you have an
injury and want to keep going,there are ways to, just you know
, wrap your ankle and wrap yourfeet, back, your toes.
Jeremy (09:35):
I'm going to take a CO tape, right?
Yeah, I'm going to tape it.
That's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to tape it after Isee you.
If you give me, if you give methe green light to run the 5k,
I'll tape that, tape that puppyup.
Dr. Lauren (09:46):
Yeah, it's so.
It's so versatile how wetreated there's.
Like you know, medicine is soadvanced today.
They didn't have an easierstate 100 years ago, when people
kept walking on their injuriesand we didn't have the shoes
that we had, you know, 100 yearsago.
So everything is reallydifferent.
I would say that the mostcommon cause of everybody's
injuries today is because theshoes today are made for foot
(10:08):
size and not for foot type,whereas 100 years ago they were
fitted for the foot.
Every person had their owncustom shoe.
Jeremy (10:17):
You had to go see a cobbler to fit you for a pair of
shoes Exactly, and everyoneneeds to bring back the cobbler.
Dr. Lauren (10:24):
Let's go.
I went to like a museum and Isaw like all these like shoes
and you can tell like eachperson had a unique shape to
their shoe, as do all we today,but all the shoes today are like
massively produced.
Yeah, we've made for cheap,cheaper material, materials that
we're out very frequently and alot of you know, a lot of
(10:45):
people just aren't aware aboutthat.
I have no idea and they don'tknow why they get all these
aches and pains.
Jeremy (10:51):
I mean, it kind of makes sense right, we spend quite a
bit of time on our feet makessense to have a pair of shoes
that supports them properly, andobviously, yeah, it's hard to
come by.
Dr. Lauren (11:01):
you know I do lots of shoe education in my office,
so so keep your, keep your feet,you know, protected everyone.
Jeremy (11:11):
All right, sounds good.
Thank you everyone for joiningus and we will catch you all
next time.
Everyone, have a wonderful dayand take care.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
Thank you for listening to the LMD podiatry
podcast.
For more information, visit LMDpodiatrycom.
That's LMD podiatrycom or call954-680-7133.
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