Hello,
While snowboarding about a month ago, I slipped, slid down the hill, and stopped very abruptly with my right ankle taking the majority of the load. I immediately felt pain in the ankle, but after a short rest I managed to get down the hill and return home. Loading the ankle (i.e walking) was painful, any rotation of the ankle was extremely painful, and there was some swelling and bruising as well.
Upon returning home, I called Healthlink (a service in Alberta when you can call and speak to a nurse) and described scenario and my pain levels. The Nurse recommended the Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate protocol and to visit my physician within 24h, which I did. My Physician also recommended the same protocol, and scheduled an Xray, which revealed that nothing was broken.
I understand that BBM’s stance on this would be to find movements that are tolerable and work on those, and while I couldn’t do much for the first several days, I did gradually re-introduce training and am comfortably back squatting and deadlifting now. I still experience some discomfort with ankle rotation, and my ankle mobility is noticeably reduced on the right side, but I expect these to resolve themselves with appropriately loaded training over time.
My question is this: Was the RICE protocol recommendation appropriate in this case? Is it ever appropriate for a sprained ankle? I received the same recommendation from two healthcare professionals, but it seems to be in direct contrast with BBM’s stance on such an injury. For example, Alan Thrall just made a video with a similar injury essentially recommending the opposite of what was recommended to me. I am hesitant to go directly against the recommendation of healthcare professionals, but am wondering if it’s simply an outdated recommendation that is not based on current pain/rehabilitation science.
Thanks!