Suffering from a broken ankle can be an excruciating experience. No matter how it occurred – hey, even if it happened when you were wearing those dangerous six-inch platform heels on an icy winter night – healing a broken ankle should be your primary concern. After all, you don’t want to spend all of your time indoors recovering…you want to get out and enjoy life like you used to do.
Unfortunately, rushing your broken ankle to heal is one of the worst things you can do for your injury. Your ankle needs a great amount of time to heal, and if you push it before its ready, you could risk re-injuring yourself again. Typically, it takes a broken ankle about six to eight weeks. Therefore, if you want to help your broken ankle heal, you might want to consider taking the following steps:
Take a good hard look at your diet. It’s safe to say that if you’re filling up on junk food, you’re not getting the nutrients your body needs to efficiently heal your broken ankle. To give your body a kick-start, consider taking a calcium and magnesium supplement. The calcium is crucial for building strong bones, while the magnesium helps your body absorb all of the calcium. You can find these supplements at drugstores everywhere.
Give yourself time to rest. We know it can be boring just hanging out on your couch day after day; however, if you want to speed up your broken ankle healing time, you need to cut yourself some slack. Turn your recovery time into productive time by working from home, starting a blog, or learning a new skill like designing websites.
Isolate your broken ankle as much as possible. Instead of using crutches – which come with the risk of bumping your broken ankle – consider using a knee walker instead. This handy mobility device isolates your ankle and makes it easier to move around. You can’t get that kind of promise from a wooden mobility device that causes armpit blisters (ugh).
It can take a few months for a broken ankle to heal, so use these tips to ensure that your broken ankle recovery is a speedy one.