In this article, we have reviewed the best walking boot for sprained ankle. If you are in a hurry, the table below gives a quick snapshot of the top ones.
Contents
Did you ever roll or twist your ankle while running? You might have experienced a bruise or a swollen ankle. This is what is medically known as an “Ankle Sprain”.
You get an ankle sprain when your ankle ligaments get torn[1]. If youre wondering what “ligaments” are, they are strong & flexible tissues that bind your bones together.
An ankle sprain is one of the most common foot problems, especially in sports and younger adults. However, adults above the age of 65 also have a 4% incidence rate[2].
Ankle sprains are classified in Grades I, II, and III based on the severity of the injury:
- Grade I: Stretched ligaments. It is a mild injury.
- Grade II sprains: Partially torn ligaments. Might need to wear a splint or cast.
- Grade III sprains: Fully torn ligaments. Surgery is required.
You can treat Grade I with a bit of home care, but for a Grade II and Grade III injury, you will need to protect your ankle for some days.
Will a Walking Boot Help a Sprained Ankle?
Earlier, if you sprained your ankle, you had to take a few days off from work.
However, nowadays, one of the ways in which you can continue moving around till the ankle heals is to use a “walking boot”.
A walking boot is also known as a Controlled Ankle Motion (CAM) Boot. It is orthopedic medical footwear that provides stability and reduces stress on your ligaments[3][4].
If you’re wondering what a walking boot looks like, and how to put it on, here’s a video for you:
Now, let’s take a quick look at some of the best walking boot for sprained ankle.
Our Top Choice – United Ortho Short Air Cam Walker Boot
The United Ortho USA14115 Short Air Cam Walker Fracture Boot, Medium, Black is our top choice for Best Walking Boot For Sprained Ankle, because of the following reasons:
- Hard rocker and shock absorbing insole.
- It comes with a medial/ lateral air cells system for customized compression.
- High-quality plastic shells and uprights with steel reinforcement.
- Medium-sized CAM boots can fit in the right foot or left foot easily.
Best Walking Boot For Sprained Ankle
#1 United Ortho Short Air Cam Walker Boot
To provide your feet and ankle with ultimate comfort and support, United Ortho brings you its premium range of Short Air Cam Walker Fracture Boot, which will never fail to relieve you from the prolonging pain. It consists of a lateral air bladder, which will provide necessary compression. Also, its steel reinforcement will remain durable even after regular usage.
Features and Benefits
- Size: These medium sized CAM boots can fit in the right foot or left foot easily, with no need for any modifications. Size ranges from 7-9 for men and 8.5-10.5 for women and can support up to 300 pounds of weight.
- Air bladder: It comes with a medial/ lateral air cells system, which helps users get customized compression and guarantee increased comfort level and more stability.
- Sturdy: The United Ortho comes up with high-quality plastic shells and uprights with steel reinforcement to protect the foot and promote sturdiness. Also, this reinforcement plastic makes it more durable.
- Hard Sole: These CAM boots come with a hard rocker and shock absorbing insole that reduces the impact of heel strike while walking. Also, its wide footbed helps to provide better stability to the legs and promote natural walking.
Why should you buy it?
United Ortho Short Air CAM medium-sized boot is one of the best choices. It comes as a foot security package and healer for people suffering from a sprain in the ankles. It is made of stiff rock shock-absorbing soles to promote natural walking. Reinforced with plastic and steel makes it fully durable. It has a wide footbed to get increased balance, comfort, and accommodation for bandages.
You might like to read: Best Walking Boot For Lisfranc Fracture
#2 BraceAbility Short Broken Toe Boot
BraceAbility Short Broken Toe Boot comes with a wide footbed to provide plush comfort and support to your ankles. Its high-quality sole is designed to mimic how a person walks and provides support to the foot.
Features and Benefits
- Design: This boot is small in size, due to which it can be worn on any foot left or right. Size ranges from 6-8 for men and 6.5-9 for women, and the weight of the boot is 1 pound 15 ounces, which is relatively lightweight and ready to use for users with sprain ankle to walk properly.
- Wide footbed: This boot comes with a wide footbed open toe design to accommodate swelling and bandaging. This boot’s inside part comes with high quality deluxe cushioned foam liner and extra soft pads to provide the users with an ultimate feeling of comfort and support.
- Sole: It comes with a natural rocker bottom designed to mimic how a person will walk. The rigid, stiff sole, and bottom tread design help users to get more balance and stability.
- Added value: It has a highly adjustable 3-strap system and extra strong polymer shell to engender a comfortable and secure fit. These straps are medical-grade Velcro, which is 10x more potent than retail to support day to day activities.
Why should you buy it?
BraceAbility Short Broken Toe Boot is an ultimate boot choice that provides extra stability and balance and has a wide footbed, which gives space for accommodation for bandages and swelling. Hard rock sole and 3 strap system with high-quality polymer help the users to have a safe, comfortable, and secure fit.
You might like to read: Best Cane for Balance Problems
#3 United Ortho-Air Cam Walker
United Ortho-Air Cam Walker is a premium range of boot walkers exclusively designed for people with frequent ankle sprain problems. The high-quality sole ensures a firm grip, and the overall design provides ergonomic support.
Features and Benefits
- Sole: This CAM boot has a rocker sole, which engenders a rock-solid grip and ultimate shock absorbance to have a feeling of natural walking while using it. Its wide footbed sole enables the users to gain more stability, comfort, and accommodation for edema and bandages.
- Ultimate Fit: These CAM boots come with a universal fit design. Size ranges from 9.5-12 for men and 11-12+ for women giving users to choose as per their comfort level. Its full-length design provides excellent ankle support.
- Air bladder: Having a medial/ lateral air cells system gives users custom compression and increased comfort levels and stability.
- Material: The United Ortho is made of high-quality plastic molded uprights with steel reinforcements, which engender sturdiness and better balance to legs.
Why should you buy it?
The United ortho perfectly provides a solution to the people facing difficulties in walking due to ankle strains. These CAM boots come with plastic molded with steel reinforcements to give the users ergonomic support and ultimate sturdiness. The air bladders offer custom compression, and its wide footed design and rocker sole makes it shock-absorbing so that users can do everyday tasks with ease.
You might like to read: Best Walking Boot For Broken Toe
#4 MARS Wellness Premium Short Air Cam Walker Boot
MARS Wellness Premium Short Air Cam Walker Boots come with an exceptional power air bladder, which, when inflated, provides increased levels of comfort and support to the ankle. These walker boots engender maximum balance and a firm grip while walking.
Features and Benefits
- Air bladders: It comes with air bladders so users can simply pump to inflate to provide an extra relief in the ankle area and has a premium push-button to deflate it. It helps to gain an increased comfort level and more stability.
- Universal fit: This short orthopedic boot comes with a universal and unisex fit design; i.e., it allows the user to customize the fit. This will perfectly fit on any foot and engenders a good balancing power.
- Rocker bottom: This boot comes with low profile rocker bottom and contoured struts to provide a greater surface area. This design not only helps to reduce pressure points but also offers high stability and support.
- Comfortable: This boot comes with a super comfy foam liner along with hooks and good quality strong straps, which slide perfectly through the bracket to allow easy and quick fitting and adjustments.
Why should you buy it?
MARS Wellness Premium Short Air Cam
Walker Boots are an ideal choice of boots for people with ankle sprains or recent fractures. These boots are made to contour the foot shape to provide maximum relief from the pain and high comfort levels.
You might like to read: How to Use a Cane for Balance?
#5 Superior Braces Low Top Walking Boot
Superior Braces Low Top Boots, which is made to provide stability and comfort to the user. Its overall design, including the sole, is made in accordance with the ergonomic point of view.
Features and Benefits
- Design: This boot has a medium-lightweight design. This open toe non air design can be worn in any foot-left or right. It comes in different sizes ranging from X-small to X-large to fit all.
- Sole: It comes with a rocker sole and shock absorbing insole to provide the users with more stability and control to legs to do their everyday tasks with ease. It helps in faster recovery in cases of ankle sprains, fractures, etc.
- Material: This is made of high-quality plastic molded upright and thin foam layers, ensuring greater stability and patient comfort.
Why should you buy it?
Superior Braces low top non air low profile medical orthopedic walkers are perfect for people who are looking for medium-sized boots to get faster recovery from sprain ankles. With a universal fit design, it comes in different sizes to suit other users. Its rocker rigid shock-absorbing sole lets its users do day to day tasks without constraints and provide them with a high level of stability and balance.
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#6 Mars Wellness Premium Tall Air Cam Boots
These boots aim to provide you with an extra inch of relief due to their upgraded pneumatic system. The sprain along the ankles requires constant support and compression for quick healing, and these boots never fail to accomplish that.
Features and Benefits
- Air bladders: These CAM boots have an upgraded pneumatic system quick-release air valve to give the users extra relief around the ankles. It helps to provide an enhanced compression and improved comfort level for everyday use.
- Size: These CAM boots have a large universal size of boots in which size ranges from X-Small to X-large. It can also support footbed length from 9 inches to 12.5 inches so that users can choose according to their choice of comfort.
- Durability: They are made of high-quality polymer with multiple strands to give a high percentage of protection and more durability than others. This helps to reduce weight evenly so that users feel easy to walk even in sprained ankle conditions.
- Rough Tough Sole: Having a rocker bottom with an advanced beveled edged sole helps engender natural fluid gait patterns. It is crafted with contoured struts to reduce the pressure points and walk with ease.
Why should you buy it?
Mars Wellness Premium Tall Air CAM boots are the best solution for sprains’ treatments as its rocker bottom with pneumatic system quick-release air value gives better balance and helps to get relief in pain. It comes up with a multi-strand to provide more durability and helps to reduce weight. Also, it comes in all universal sizes so that users can choose according to their comfort.
Buyer’s Guide: Best Walking Boot For Sprained Ankle
Universal Fit
The best walking boot for sprained ankle should have a universal fit design so that users can choose according to their choice to gain more stability and balance.
Different boots come in different sizes so that the foot remains neutral even when users perform daily tasks so that faster recovery can be expected.
Sole
Sole plays an essential role while buying such boots as whole body weight comes to it. Hard rocker sole should be preferred to gain better stability.
Also, some boots come with a shock-absorbing insole so that when users perform any work that involves a severe movement, this insole absorbs shock and lets the foot relax to be in its neutral place.
You might like to read: Best Walking Boot For Achilles Tendonitis
Quality and durability
Different boots are made of several different types of material. High quality plastic molded design is most commonly preferred.
In addition to this, several boots have other reinforced steel and high-quality polymer straps with an air bladder to provide better sturdiness and comfort as it also makes it more durable.
Frequently Asked Questions: Best Walking Boot For Sprained Ankle
Will a walking boot help a sprained ankle?
Yes, these boots keep the ligaments and joints in place while they heal. It keeps the feet in a neutral position, which limits mobility and provides an added layer of protection, which helps to recover fast.
What injuries require a walking boot?
Injuries that require you to wear a walking boot include shin, ankle, foot fractures, calf muscle tears, ankle sprains, or Achilles injuries.
Your chiropractor, physiotherapist or doctor will prescribe a walking boot incase they feel like it would be an appropriate treatment for you.
You might like to read: Best Walking Boot For Broken Toe
Do you wear walking boot all day?
The walking boot should be worn exactly as your doctor tells you. Some patients may wear the brace 24 hrs. a day.
At the same time, others may only need to wear it when they are up and can remove it for showers and bed.
Should you leave a sprained ankle wrapped overnight?
Compression helps reduce swelling and provides stability to your ankle by immobilizing it. You must apply a compression bandage as soon as a sprain occurs.
You must wrap your ankle with an elastic bandage, such as an ACE bandage, and leave it on for 48 to 72 hours. Wrap the bandage snugly, but not tightly.
You might like to read: Best Ankle Brace to Prevent Rolling
Conclusion
Never ignore any type of foot injury as it may become severe after a while. Hence, wear an ankle boot if you have an ankle sprain and don’t forget to see a doctor before.
In our opinion, the United Ortho USA14115 Short Air Cam Walker Fracture Boot, Medium, Black is the best choice among the various options that we have considered, because it consists of a lateral air bladder, which will provide necessary compression. Also, its steel reinforcement will remain durable even after regular usage.
The BraceAbility Short Walking Boot - Orthopedic Medical Walker Cast for Broken Toe Injuries, Sprained Ankles, Metatarsal Stress, Post-Op Support Left or Right Foot Fracture Shoe Fits Men and Women (S) is our next best choice because it provides plush comfort and support to your ankles. Its high-quality sole is designed to mimic how a person walks and provides support to the foot.
If you are looking for a value for money option, you can also consider the SB Superior Braces (Size Medium) Low Top, Non-Air, Low Profile Medical Orthopedic Walker Boot for Ankle & Foot Injuries, Male Shoe Size 7 1/2-10, Female Shoe Size 8 1/2-11 1/2, which offers great value and features at a very reasonable price point.
References:
[1] https://medlineplus.gov/ency/patientinstructions/000574.htm
[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5089353/#bibr3-1941738116659639
[3] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1071100717723129
