Question
Sunday morning when I got up I was feeling just fine.  After sitting on the edge of the bed and talking for about 10 minutes or so I stood up and started to take a step away from the bed.  When I did, I lost ALL sensation in my left leg.  It wasn't numb, it wasn't weak.  It was as if
there was absolutely nothing there.  I couldn't feel it at all. Needless to say I fell.  All of my body weight landed on my foot.  I didn't feel this either.  I sat there a few minutes rubbing my leg trying to get some feeling into it and suddenly it started burning. But when I bent my knee, the feeling went completely away again. Finally about three
to five minutes later, the feeling started to gradually return. And then it felt fine. A few hours later, my foot that I fell on started to hurt and I noticed that it was swelling. By Sunday night I couldn't even walk on it so I went to the ER.  I was told that I had severely sprained my ankle and foot and that I had a strain. However, after telling them what had caused me to fall they seemed more concerned about my thigh and my back.  To my knowledge, I have never had a back injury with the exception of a pulled muscle or two (I move furniture a lot at my job).  But after going home and thinking about it I have had a lot of recent (not severe) pain in my lower back and buttocks that I put off as being kidney pain.  Do you think that I need to have this checked out? Do you think it's possible that I have a problem with a disc as the ER
doctor suggested?  Thanks in advanced for any help you can give.  I am a 33 year old, relatively healthy female.


Answer
Hi Lori,

I think they are being overly cautious with additional work-up. You simply cut off the blood supply to your leg while putting pressure against the main artery for 10 minutes and you leg, "fell asleep", causing the inversion sprain in the ankle. Don't worry to much about it if you keep it elevated and iced as much as possible. These thing take 6-8 weeks to heal and remain unstable without wobble board therapy after the pain goes away. Google wobble board and get one on line with someone in the health care field to show you how to use it, you'll need too. Lucky you didn't sit that way for another few minutes and throw a clot and get a pulmonary embolism or stroke. That's a big cause of death in airline seats.

Good Luck!

Dr. Timothy Durnin