I took a 15ft fall soloing in sandals and have a major sprain on both the inside and outside of my ankle...when do you think it would be possible to start climbing again? And yes I know I'm an idiot for soloing in sandals haha.

15 ft fall in sandals? try a crash pad or proper foot ware .... you will heal... but you got off easy ....black an blue.

depends on how much damage you did to your ligaments/tendons...I sprained my ankle enough to be on crutches for a few days years ago and i was sidelined for a couple of months.

go see a good pt and they'll give you a better number, but i'd expect a few weeks to a couple of months, unless it was really bad.

Dude take it easy, most brain injuries leave you messed up for a awhile.

Absolutely get it XRayed. I had a "medium sprain" 15 years ago that actually chipped some talar cartilage away. It healed poorly (though I didn't know it at the time), ended up resulting in surgery ten years later, and will haunt me the rest of my life.

Any significant sprain requires an XRay. And it should be reviewed by someone trained in ankle injuries. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Had mine been xrayed, I would been put in a boot for 6-8 weeks and it would have probably healed fine. But I didn't know and the PT just treated it like a sprain and the injury became permanent.

I am not trying to scare you, just get it xrayed if you haven't already.

Let me second what Andy said.

Not quite 18 months ago I badly sprained (so I thought) my ankle while hiking down after climbing.

I figured a doc would just tell me to ice it, stay off of it for a few days, and then start walking on it. So I did that but didn't go to the doc or PT.

I started climbing on it after about 3 1/2 weeks, but after 12 weeks it was still swollen so I finally went to the ortho. She ordered a CAT scan and discovered that in addition to the sprain, the injury was an avulsion fracture (bone fragments pulled off by the ligaments).

Had I gone in initially it would have been treated more aggressively. Now, even after physical therapy it continues to annoy me while hiking, feels weaker than before, and according to the ortho, will probably always bother me a bit.

I just sprained an ankle really badly and was climbing easy stuff and playing rugby within 4 days. I think using it helped it "heal" but it still took about three weeks before the pain really has gone away and I feel comfortable taking high bouldering falls.

But yeah, if you have insurance you might as well get an x ray.

I've sprained my ankles several times over the years from bouldering falls - sometimes with a pad. My experience - pretty much 6 weeks before climbing....

Paul

Wow I had no idea about most of this stuff. I just hope it heals as well as some of you.