Recently sprained my ankle pretty bad and heard a pop. Got an X-ray and no broken bones, but have not gotten an MRI yet. It has been over a week and the pain has started to subside, but now the pain has transitioned to what feels like shin splints and there is some swelling up my shin as well. Honestly, I do not know all the ligaments in the ankle and lower leg, but I am thinking I could have torn something. PCP told me to wait and see if it improves, but that was via chat and she didn't see it in person.

Any input or advice is appreciated.

The muscle tendons used to raise your foot extends into the top of your foot. Maybe you pulled one?

Did they do weight bearing xrays of your ankle?

I probably agree with your PCP. You may very well have partially torn something, or even fully torn something, but if you have full function of all motions of the foot, you're probably ok to just rest it and let it heal. If you do have a high ankle sprain, that could require advanced imaging and surgery, but the probablity if less than 1% if there was no fracture seen on xray. There's something called the squeeze test you can look up and try to test for a high ankle sprain.

Ankles are notorious for taking forever to fully recover. Give it a solid 2 weeks of rest and basic range of motion exercises. Then gradually return to activity. Try to feel for instability in the foot/ankle. Instability might be a good indication for advanced imaging, but first you'd need a hands on exam by your PCP to see where the instability is. Weight bearing x-rays first might also be useful.

Thanks for all the advice.

The x-rays performed were a set of three from various positions and I was seated at the time extending my leg to the machine.

Just looked up squeeze test and just watching the video caused me pain. That is what I was calling "shin splint" like pain. Looks like it might be a high ankle sprain.