Ankle Ligament Tears - ATFL & PTFL - Postpone surgery and ski anyway? Other tips?

You can read that title as tears as in ripped AND tears as in sad.

After missing almost all but the tail end of last season (and all of the 2011 summer) due to ACL/meniscus tear and subsequent surgery, I've now decided to fuck up my ankle as well.

Anyway, to summarize: I went to kick soccer ball with extreme strength. Other player disagreed and planted right in front of it. Bang goes my kick, the ball goes nowhere, and my ankle and leg really hurt. Wasn't too bad 3 days later, doc & I agree its light sprain, ignore.

Still hurts ~5 weeks later (of and on, but not consistent) so I get X-ray & MRI. X-Ray Negative, MRI Says:

"Syndesmotic ligament injury with a tear of the anterior tibiofibular ligament and a probable partial tear or sprain of the posterior tibiofibular ligament".

Also showed some "abnormally thickened" ATFL and CFL due to prior spraining (actually partial tear that healed up about 10 years ago).

I want to go to the ortho with some idea of what people have gone through, so any beta?

Big question: I don't want to blow yet another ski season, so can I wait till April if it does need surgery and ski anyway?

At this point I don't think it can get "more" ripped, but I also don't want to tank the rest of my leg since that side of my body is apparently made of glass and arthritis at this point.

are ski boots braces? seems like it could just be a pain tolerance issue unless it a) diminishes your ability to have finer control of your skis; or b) causes you to compensate in other areas, which will either a)fuck you up some other way in a repetitive way or b) result in catastrophic wreck, likely coming off the chairlift, resulting in 2 blown acls, 2 broken wrists and a new nose.

that's what i got off pocoyo so far.

I only know about this problem from personal experience, not as a doc, but a sprain=ligament tear. I used to get them fairly frequently. MRI's didn't exist the last time I had one, which was the worst one, perhaps you'd be better off if they didn't exist now (but my xray did show a tiny bit of bone the ligament pulled off the tibia). The ortho I saw at the time had my ankle taped--said the parts didn't need to be immobilized to heal. The main question to ask your ortho--is this something that will get better without surgery. If he recommends surgery I might be inclined to get a second opinion.

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Originally Posted by spook

are ski boots braces?

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Exactly what I'm thinking. I have already noticed knee pain in the already repaired knee above this stupid ankle, likely as a result of how I've been doing stuff since hurting the ankle... I'm picturing magnifying that immensely somehow and ending up with the chairlift doomsday scenario.

Goat - I'm on board there, actually pre-emptively scheduled two different ortho appointments. That way I can pick the opinion I like best, kind of like asking Mom then Dad.

Any of you dentists who do ankles want to chime in?