sprained ankle or not?

[sugaredwillo]

my sons ankle is swollen on the inside of his leg but, it is not soft it is a hard lump it swelled up like this pretty sudden he says it really hurts him. so we took him to the hospital and the doctor thinks it is a sprain but, he says in young children it is hard to tell and to bring him to his doctor for more x-rays. so my question is if it is a sprain would it be hard and protruding this much? could it be a break?

[treaclefight]

it is indeed hard to tell with young children exactly whats happened but thats no excuse for not gettng to the bottom of it, we can't go giving up just coz things are hard. i think that doctor may have been having an off day, children don't (as a rule) pretend to be in pain and lumps like this are not normal. more x-rays yes, but also pain killers and a diagnosis and a prognosis and some proper treatment. not to mention a bit less of the sending you home with a child in pain and you not knowing whats going on. good luck and be confident, the injury may (hopefully) turn out to be minor, but you are not worrying over nothing here, this does need more investigation. :-)

[treaclefight]

oh and post again to tell us how you got on coz i wont be able to forget about the little love.

[darth vader]

The doctor advised sugaredwillo return with his/her child for xrays which i hardly call "sending you home with a child in pain", as treaclefight suggests. Certainly your son doesn't have a broken ankle (otherwise he wouldn't be able to walk full stop, and would be screaming in pain). It is true that (especially in young kids) it is often hard to get a decent xray - i think due to the hardness of the swelling causing incorrect/vague xray picture - and so a doctor will often request a patient returns in a few days for xrays instead. I had this requested after a possible broken scaphoid in the wrist was impossible to xray when i first went in. With regard to the swelling yes it is possible for the swelling to be "rock hard" as the muscle spasms itself into a tight ball. If you are not convinced (and rightly so being a caring parent) then go to another hospital or to your GP for an immediate second opinion.

[sugaredwillo]

well the doctors did more x-rays and it just ended up being a bad sprain.he's doing much better now. thanks for all of your help.