How to Prevent Ankle Injuries This Winter

Trees cov­ered with fresh, pow­dery snow. Ici­cles glit­ter­ing from the rooftops. Hol­i­day cheer in the air.

And ice. Lots and lots of slip­pery ice.

It doesn’t take long for a pic­ture-per­fect win­ter set­ting to turn haz­ardous. Between the ice, snow, and bit­ing cold tem­per­a­tures, win­ter is a prime sea­son for slips, trips, and ankle injuries. Dur­ing win­ter, the amount of ankle sprains and breaks increas­es dramatically. 

The good news is that there are plen­ty of steps you can take to low­er the risk of injur­ing your ankle dur­ing the win­ter. Here’s how you can pre­vent ankle injuries this season.

Also read: For Many, Win­ter Is Fall Season

Choose Your Footwear Wisely

Win­ter weath­er isn’t the time to wear old boots with holes in them or a pair of high heels. It’s the time to pri­or­i­tize ankle injury pre­ven­tion by wear­ing shoes that will keep you from falling.

You can ​“win­ter­ize” your footwear by:

• Adding spike­less snow and ice shoe grip­per sole cov­ers to your reg­u­lar shoes. These give you more sta­bil­i­ty on icy, slip­pery surfaces.

• Invest­ing in a pair of boots or shoes that are spe­cial­ly designed for win­ter wear. Look for boots or shoes with rub­ber soles, since those can help you main­tain traction.

• Wear­ing shoes that are made for the activ­i­ty you’re doing, like boots made specif­i­cal­ly for hik­ing. This is impor­tant year-round, but it’s extra impor­tant in win­ter, when there is an increased risk of falling. 

If you’re going some­where that requires shoes instead of boots (or if you feel like get­ting fan­cy for a night), wear boots on the way there.

Keep your feet warm and dry.

Cold, wet feet can cause a chain reac­tion that ends in an ankle injury.

It starts with the cold and damp­ness caus­ing foot prob­lems. For exam­ple, expo­sure to extreme­ly cold tem­per­a­tures can cause frost­bite. If you spend a lot of time out­doors and stand in wet and cold con­di­tions for a long time, you can get trench foot, a foot con­di­tion that restricts blood flow to your foot result­ing in numb­ness, pain, red­ness, and swelling. Wet socks can lead to athlete’s foot, a fun­gal skin infec­tion that can cause itch­ing, red­ness, and scaling.

Frost­bite, trench foot, and athlete’s foot can all cause pain (which can make it more dif­fi­cult to walk). That can lead to an increased risk of falling – which can, of course, cause an ankle injury. 

Keep your feet toasty by choos­ing well-fit­ting and insu­lat­ed shoes with­out holes and wear­ing mois­ture-wick­ing socks that allow the socks and your feet to dry quick­ly. Make sure to change out of wet shoes or socks as soon as you can and to change socks at least once every day. 

Don’t for­get about assis­tive walk­ing devices.

An assis­tive walk­ing or mobil­i­ty device, like a cane or walk­er, can slide across icy sur­faces, caus­ing you to fall.

If you or a loved one needs to go out­side with a device, con­sid­er using an ice grip­per tip. This tip, which attach­es right to the bot­tom of the cane or the legs of a walk­er, has spikes on the bot­tom so that the cane stays firm­ly on the ground and doesn’t slide. 

Also, if pos­si­ble, avoid using a rol­la­tor or wheeled walk­er on snow or ice. The wheels on rol­la­tors are slick and can eas­i­ly slip. If you need to use a rol­la­tor, you may be able to get one that’s specif­i­cal­ly designed for snow or to buy walk­er acces­sories like gliders.

Keep Your Home Slip-Proof

The risk of a win­ter ankle injury doesn’t just come from walk­ing on an icy trail or snowy side­walk. Slip­ping on ice can hap­pen any­where, so it’s impor­tant to look out for trip­ping haz­ards in and around where you live.

After being out­side, you might track snow or ice into your home and end up mak­ing your home slip­pery inside.

Ways to stay safe at home include:

• Sprin­kling salt or cat lit­ter on dri­ve­ways, porch­es, and stairs to keep them from get­ting too icy and slippery. 

• Installing rail­ings on out­door steps.

• Putting a boot tray just inside every entrance to your home. 

• Keep­ing some tow­els by each entrance to put down for days when your shoes are par­tic­u­lar­ly wet. 

• Tak­ing off wet shoes and socks as soon as you get indoors.

• Leav­ing sports, hunt­ing, or oth­er recre­ation­al gear in the garage to lim­it wet items com­ing inside the house.

Stay active to pre­vent ankle injuries in the future.

It can be tempt­ing to spend the win­ter curled up on the couch. But between your hot choco­late and movie marathons, make sure you’re still get­ting phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. It’s not just good for your over­all health and fit­ness – it can also help you avoid ankle injuries lat­er on.

Being inac­tive, which is com­mon dur­ing the win­ter, can weak­en your ankles and feet. If you aren’t active dur­ing the win­ter and sud­den­ly start phys­i­cal activ­i­ty once spring hits, you might devel­op a con­di­tion like Achilles tendinopa­thy or plan­tar fasci­itis. These con­di­tions can cause ankle or heel pain. 

Keep mov­ing to make sure that your ankles stay healthy and strong. If you do take a lit­tle break from activ­i­ty, slow­ly ease into activ­i­ty again so that you’re not jump­ing from 0 to 100. 

Know what to do if you get an injury.

Despite your best efforts, you may still find your­self with an ankle injury. In many cas­es, you can start the heal­ing process with the R.I.C.E. method — rest, ice, com­pres­sion, and ele­va­tion. Over-the-counter pain med­ica­tions can also help. If those don’t do the trick, and you can’t bear weight because of the pain or you have sig­nif­i­cant pain or swelling, sched­ule an appoint­ment with our fel­low­ship-trained foot and ankle ortho­pe­dic physi­cian today by call­ing (217) 222‑6550 ext. 3091.

There are times when ankle injuries are emer­gen­cies that require imme­di­ate care. Don’t wait to get care if:

• Your ankle is swollen and hot, and you also have a fever. This could be a sign of an infection.

• You can’t use your ankle at all.

• You feel a pop or hear a pop­ping sound when the injury occurs.

• The pain is severe.

Get­ting an ankle injury dur­ing the win­ter isn’t always avoid­able. But with the right pre­ven­tive steps, you can decrease your risk and keep your ankles healthy.