Learn about an ancient therapy that won’t cost you a penny.
I sprained my ankle. Two weeks later, I re-sprained it. A week after that, I did it again – slipping on a piece of carpet. I injured my ankle 3 times in 4 weeks!
The bad thing was, I didn’t even know what caused it.
Have you been there? Waking up in the morning with part of your body in severe pain, no idea what you did?
All it took me was one false move during my daily workout. It didn’t feel wrong at the time. But the morning after… my ankle was hurtin’.
Of course, the first sprain was the worst sprain. Then I compounded the problem by not being aware of how vulnerable my ankle is. This joint is very susceptible to reinjury – perhaps the most susceptible part of your body!
We take our bones and joints for granted.
Physical health is important, but we forget how much we need it, until we are injured.
Having a sprained ankle is especially inconvenient.
You know how it feels, limping everywhere slowly and painfully. Not being able to sleep in a comfortable position. Being temporarily crippled.
Obviously, walking is important – especially when it’s part of your exercise routine AND you have a big dog.
Now I couldnʻt hobble from Point A to Point B without excruciating pain. Never have I felt so disabled.
With the pain only getting worse and no help in sight, I went to the doctor a week after my first “accident.” But that was a last resort.
Doctors are human like the rest of us. They make mistakes. They can lose concern for our well-being in their rush to get a job done. Many doctors perpetuate disease by prescribing harmful medications. They overlook details. They overtreat. They undertreat. They treat… people like numbers.
If we believe wholeheartedly in the powers of natural medicine, a doctor may not be the right choice.
At a doctor’s office, we might not get the care we need.
During my visit, instead of “examining” my ankle, the unfriendly, condescending doctor on duty (not my regular doctor) stayed several feet away. Her fingers never left her keyboard.
She didn’t:
look at my ankle.
touch my ankle.
get up from her chair.
Instead, what she examined was my footwear.
Then she scolded me.
No, she didn’t look at or feel my injured ankle. What she did do was criticize me for wearing the “wrong” shoes.
These were high-quality, cushioned leather sandals with firm support. I wore them so she would have easy access to my lower leg, anticipating there’d be no pain removing socks and shoes. What should I have worn, steel-toed boots?
The doctor also scoffed at the ace bandage and brace I had fitted around my ankle. Then she prescribed a topical ointment she said her “arthritis patients love.”
Having the nurse fit a sturdier ankle brace, the doctor scheduled an x-ray and recommended therapy, if needed. The nurse was friendlly and helpful; the doctor, not so much.
I must admit, the ankle brace I got was a lifesaver. The rest of the doctor’s treatment? As they say in Hawaiʻi, “rubbah.”
Knowing your body comes with age.
The older we get, the better acquainted we are with our bodies. I knew I had pulled a tendon. It wasn’t a break, so there was no need for an unnecessary x-ray.
And I certainly didn’t have arthritis.
The good news is that with the brace for support, my ankle seemed to heal quite quickly. After only two days, I could walk virtually pain-free. On the third day, without the brace, movement was almost normal. My ankle still felt stiff and swollen, but the pain was gone.
The following weekend, confident that my ankle was “cured,” I took a short walk without my brace. This proved to be a terrible mistake, given the uneven surfaces and constant pulling my foot went through, twisting this way and that.
After my walk, I felt no tear or detachment. But the next day, I woke up with the same excruciating ankle pain I’d had two weeks before.
Repeated ankle sprains are common.
Wrongly, I’d put my ankle to the test. I hadn’t given it enough time. Feeling no pain, I thought I was in the clear. Why wasn’t it better?
Research has shown that ankles are one the most vulnerable body parts when it comes to re-injury. Once the ankle is “twisted,” it becomes weakened. This functional instability causes your ankle to give way. This is because damaged ligaments can’t support or hold the ankle in place like they did before. Ankle sprain recovery can take weeks to months, so we have to tread carefully.
The body has to retrain itself to walk.
Our bodies react to certain positions and movements based on past experience. When we step, our muscles contract to hold the ankle in the right place, stabilizing it. After damage from a sprain, muscles may contract too early, causing abnormal or lack of motor control. The joint gives way. Ankle injury victims have to pay attention to how they move.
Another source of reinjury can be tiny receptors in the joint called mechanoreceptors. Sometimes the receptors don’t signal “danger” to the brain when we step on an uneven surface or make other abnormal movements. Muscles around the weakened ankle don’t have advance warning to avoid twisting or re-spraining.
Ankle injuries take a long time to heal, but there is a cost-free, no-doctor option that can shorten that time.
There’s plenty of wisdom here on the islands. After the initial sprain, an astute Hawaiian with a flower behind her ear gave me counsel:
“Mix ginger, potatoes, and flour into a paste, and spread it on your ankle,” she kindly guided. “Then pray for forgiveness of your sins.”
It had worked for her husband several times, she went on to say.
With no potatoes in the house, all I could do was pray. There was too much pain to go to the store for a 10-pound bag.
My neighbors also watched me limping around. A 73-year-old Filipina woman offered to massage my ankle. She had a special trick - an oil containing that same curative root: ginger. Massage didn’t seem suitable on unsecured tendons, so I told her we should wait.
A Samoan grandmother saved the day.
After the first sprain, my Samoan friend Ietita – mother of nine and grandmother of more – recommended I wrap my leg in a large noni leaf to stop the pain. I tried it. Something green can often heal us more quickly than what the doctor prescribes.
Nothing happened; there was little relief. Maybe I didn’t apply the compress correctly, but I wore it for a few hours. Leaves weren’t the way to go.
When she saw me limp through the third sprain, Ietita offered up another cure known to the people of Samoa (and other island natives).
“Bury your foot in the sand,” she said. “It works!”
I had my doubts. And I was getting pretty depressed about my injury. I thought that there was no cure for my chronic ankle problems, outside of surgery.
But with nothing left to lose, I gave it a shot.
Where I live, there’s sand everywhere. I had my choice of beaches. I wanted to save my ankle.
The next morning, I ventured down to some big, soft piles. The brace came off. Burying my foot heel-down, I sat in a comfortable position, watching the waves.
The sand felt cool and damp; velvety piles of smooth grains were refreshing. I sat as long as I could – at least 45 minutes – my ankle buried all the way up to my shin.
The mound I packed around my leg created a comfortable, compact “brace” of its own. It was secured, held in place, immobile, and relaxed.
It was odd; watching my calf muscles, I saw twitching and involuntary movement. Something was happening. I’d experienced the same thing the second night after my sprain. This assured me healing was happening.
Driving home, I had more flexibility in my foot and ankle, and less of that tight feeling from the swelling. Walking around the rest of the day, I felt no discomfort.
This natural remedy – only a few short steps from home and available without a doctor and at no cost – finally helped.
The sand had made me better! That afternoon, I went for a second dose on a beach nearer my home, sitting for about a half an hour.
This was a new kind of health care: ancient wisdom and island “magic,” with basic elements from the earth.
When I told my Hawaiian friend how it worked, he remembered a story from his youth about a boy with bowed legs. Every day for weeks, the boy’s parents sat him on the beach and buried his legs in sand. His miraculously straightened!
Sometimes these “miracle cures” seem too good to be true, because we’ve never heard of or experienced them ourselves. But many do work and have been in place for centuries.
With more research, I found there is a name for what I’d done: psammotherapy (“psammo,” the Greek word for sand). It turns out this commonly-found substance has been used for centuries to help relieve muscular and skeletal pain and deformities, as well as arthritis.
Ancient Greeks knew the power of sun-warmed sand and used hot “sand baths” to treat many conditions. This included injuries to the muscles and bones. Ancient Egyptians used hot sand therapy to treat ailments such as scoliosis (curvature of the spine), inflammation and other aches and pains.
Heat from the sun and sea salt combine to create a natural painkiller. The salt also draws out poisons created when your body has inflammation or swelling.
It is amazing that a pile of sand can do so much!
What do you do if you don’t live near a beach?
You don’t have to fly to the islands, Greece or Egypt to get relief for your sprained joints. There are spas around the world that offer psammotherapy. For a price.
And if you can’t afford a spa?
Get some bags of sand from your hardware store, make a pile outside in a sunny spot, and cover up your aching body parts. You’ll be amazed at the result.
. . .
Sources:
Eamonn Delahunt, BSc, et al. Altered Neuromuscular Control and Ankle Joint Kinematics During Walking in Subjects with Functional Instability of the Ankle Joint. In The American Journal of Sports Medicine. December 2006. Vol. 34. No. 12. Pp. 1970-1976.
https://www.naturallifeapp.com/healthy_tips/sand_therapy_as_a_remedy_against_joint_pain
www.scmp.com/magazines/style/luxury/article/3036214/hot-sand-therapy-4-things-expect-psammotherapy-holistic
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