Lateral Collateral Ligament Sprain - Time off?

Hi Adrian The sprained ankle should be "compress bandaged"- put a wad of tissue over the svollen part of the FTL ligament and wind a elastic bandage as tight as you can (the toes should turn white) around the ankle - keep it there for 20 minutes and repeat the process 3 times for three consecutive days. use the ace bandage as support in between. Use a ortosis with lateral support constructuon (ask in a sport shop) to keep stress off the LCL and lateral meniscus. Whitin 2 weeks start doing fairly heavy knee extension in a gym machine - keep the reps at 1-20 , 3 sets and keep it slow going down! Most likely you would benefit from a cortison injection in the kneejoint - on the other hand it would keep you weak longer. The only way to be really sure if you have a meniscus injury is through artroscopy and doing this a good ortopaedic surgeon will be able to repair it. Use a good antiinflammatory prescription drug for three weeks - and calculate this is the minimum time off from high level climbing. If there is a meniscus injury it will take even more time before you can safely perform dropknees etc. Remember - most important - I can only make an educated guess - you should get a sports medicine trained MD to examine and diagnose your injury - this will avoid loosing a lot of time trying remedies for something you actually don't have Best of luck Björn

Thank you very much! This is very helpful!