Pain & Swelling after Ankle Surgery : Reasons, Recovery time & Ways to reduce- Dr. Gururaj S Puranik

Pain and swelling are common after an ankle surgery and this is because the surgery itself is a trauma and can cause some amount of post-operative pain. The swelling is there because of the soft tissue injury associated with inability to put weight on the leg. Our legs have got muscles which propels the fluid that leaks out form the blood vessels when the blood supply is going to happen to the feet and this leaked fluid is going to be take back to the heart by the calf pumping action of the muscles . in ankle surgery since the patients are not putting any weight on the leg, there is a risks that the swelling happens and this is because of the lack of action of muscles and this can last upto 6 months and normally we have patients who don’t have any pain after 2 to 3 weeks after surgery and having swelling and they are concerned about it and we reassure them and advise some exercises to reduce the swelling. What are the ways to prevent the pain and the swelling? One is limb elevation, that is you keep the limb and the ankle over a couple of pillows when you are sleeping in the night. That will help reduce the swelling because of gravity during day time you try to elevate the foot as much as possible with the help of stool if you are sitting in an office and also actively move your toe and ankle so that it will increase the muscle activity an increases the circulation and thus reduces the swelling. You can also take anti-inflammatory pain killers if you are in a lot of pain so that it reduces a lot of pain and swelling. Ice packs also help to an extent after the surgery. So in these are the ways and means to reduce the ankle pain and swelling following an ankle surgery.