Chaos for the holidays

It's been a crazy couple of months for us. On December 2nd I slipped and fell on a decorative piece of pavement outside my church while we were picking up tickets for an outing at Greenfield Village. Needless to say, we didn't make the trip, and instead got to spend the evening with the wonderful and overworked staff at Crittenton Hospital in Rochester Hills. In short, I succeeded in achieving what was considered a Grade III sprain.

A week later and a half after the sprain I was put onto a normal regime of Physical Therapy. I actually started two days later than the doctor wanted, a Wednesday vs Monday, because I misunderstood his request and had to call his office for clarification.

Well, things seemed to plateua and they sent me in for an MRI. The doctor just said I had some tearing. But after the Physical Therapist reviewed the MRI and MRI report, I now have a new regimen from him. I have to go back to icing, staying off of stairs and no bending of the ankle (doesn't want me to worry about heal-toe gait right now - keep it at 90 degrees, etc) and such as that. It's really weird when you ice your ankle and after the 10 - 15 minutes is up, and it doesn't even feel cold at the ankle, but when you touch it with your hand, it's very cold to the touch.

In a nutshell, the MRI revealed that I had a complete tear involving the anterior inferior tibiofibular ligament (AITFL for short and not to be confused with talofibular, which can get a similar acronym and is a very common sprain). I also get some weird clicking at times from my ankle that I'm not sure what is causing it. I guess some of this explains the constant pain build up I've been experiencing after evne limited activity. If my research on the AITFL is correct, those types of sprains are not only rare, but a complete tear is the worse end of a Grade III sprain (if it can be classified as a sprain at all). Some of the medical references I've been reading also state it as a primary ligament used in the stability of your ankle and walking. (just 1 example - http://www.sportsci.org/encyc/ankacuinj/ankacuinj.html)

The Orthopedist, just wants me to follow continued physical therapy and states that the scar tissue will heal it.

I hope he's right but it almost seems I'm being treated for a talofibular sprain, not a tibiofibular complete tear and am trying to find a way to get a second opinion with an orthopedist that is unbiased and unrelated to the current doctor treating me. I just want to be able to have restful sleep at night and to walk without pain. This happened on December 2nd of 05, shouldn't it be getting a lot better by now? It's been over 10 weeks.

Basically, I start out my mornings feeling somewhat ok. I'm able to walk with the cane in the right hand and not in the left where the ankle is sprained however as the day progresses and it gets to be about 1 or 2 pm in the afternoon, (with just some moderate back and forth walking, cuz I work at a desk job), I am experiencing intense throbbing and sharp pain throughout my foot and ankle. Some days it starts sooner and I have to switch the cane back to my left hand trying the daunting task of keeping my weight off my left ankle. By mid-afternoon, I'm convinced a bottle of Motrin wouldn't take the pain away.