Is my physio therapy.

Hi,
About 6 weeks ago I got injured playing basketball. Here is my diagnosis:
There was evidence of severe soft tissue oedema overlying the ankle joint.
There was a complete full thickness tear of the anterior talofibular ligament.
This was accompanied by a joint effusion.
There was also evidence of tibialis posterior, peroneus longus and peroneus
brevis tenosynovitis.
I've been seeing a physiotherapist for about a week, and it's my first time ever seeing a physio, so i'm not sure whether he's doing the right thing or not. He's pressing on my ligaments and pushing down on my left ankle to the point where it is excruciatingly painful, and i can barely walk. I'm then told to do calf raises and on the exercise bikes. After my session today, I got told to start jogging 10-20 minutes a day. I'm not sure whether its the right thing to do, my ligaments haven't healed up completely, and I'm still feeling uncomfortable walking with an ankle brace. Is all this part of the process or am i being a bit paranoid?

Hi Rabc20,
It is hard to comment specifically on your case with regards to a number of areas without seeing the notes/techniques used. To talk in general terms though, it is quite common for a physiotherapist to push down on your ankle - if you picture laying on your back, toes pointed to the ceiling, the pressure would be down towards the floor. This type of stretching can help to restore dorsiflexion (bending the top of the foot back towards the shin). It shouldn't be particularly painful though and it may be that the grip or position of the hands might be changed if indeed this is the stretch that is being applied. The calf raises aren't inappropriate, but I would hope that you might be doing some other movements such as writing your name with your affected foot to get the small muscle units firing again, as well as getting the bigger units going as per the calf raise.
Exercise bike and running might be appropriate depending on the amount of dorsiflexion you have.

I not sure if you have already, but point out to the physio how painful the stretch/pushing down is, and see if they might be able to achieve the same thing slightly differently, but otherwise these are all things that we would do, the timing may vary depending on how your ankle presents, but 6 weeks down the track you should be doing quite a lot with it.

Is there a reason why you didn't have treatment for 6 weeks?

Cheers,
BB