I broke the 5th and 6th ribs Tuesday, how long before I can dive?
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I broke the 5th and 6th ribs Tuesday, how long before I can dive?
When the pain goes away. I had a student that was recently out for about 2 months. First dive back with LP85's he was fine for the most part. Still a little bit of minor pain, but tolerable. We dove for two days straight and he seemed to be ok.
*But you should probably ask a doctor.
My son was also out for about 2 months with his.... agreed on the doctor part....
First let me say, sorry to hear about that. Hope you get to feeling better soon.
Second, I am no doctor but play one quite frequently. A buddy of mine broke two ribs diving with me on a violent shore dive when he got tossed in to some rocks. It took him two months to get back in the water. The doctor told him, when the pain goes away, and you feel like you can do it again, wait two more weeks.
Thanks folks, my Doc also said when I feel like it but I trust you guys when it comes to diving.
since it will only hurt when you breathe you should be good to go if you hold ur breath.
took me close to 6 weeks to be pain free last time
I have never had any broken bones (knock on wood). However just because you don't feel pain, that doesn't mean the bones are healed. The last thing you need is hauling heavy tanks with partially knitted bones, and separate them again.
I like the advice, wait until you feel no pain, and wait two more weeks.
The way they feel right now you have given good advise Forrest.Quote:
Originally Posted by FW
Wonder if I can sidemount a set of al 6's lol
A couple of years ago I suddenly started feeling pain after dives. It took a few days of diving to come to the sudden rememberence that the pain was in the exact location that I had been slammed by someone's shoulder during a game of ultimate frisbee a week or two before. I thought that somehow I had been breathing deeper than normal. Turns out I had a cracked rib. No one said anything about stopping diving. I just figured that it was finally healed when I could dive pain free, somewhere around 8 weeks after the collision. Might have been sooner if I had laid off diving for a month.
A dislocated rib hurt like >words I can't say or I'll get the banhammer<. I can't begin to imagine how much they must hurt when actually cracked! Whatever you did to piss her off enough to make her break them...don't do THAT again! :D
I was carrying laundery down stairs so she didn't have too, and slipped and fell down all 15 steps.Quote:
Originally Posted by sskasser
Damn! That's what you get for being nice! That really sucks though.Quote:
Originally Posted by darkdiver211
Having had both, I would actually take a couple fractured ribs long before another sternal/clavicle/rib dislocation. Rib fractures never took me more than 2 months, my dislocated rib took almost a year.Quote:
Originally Posted by sskasser
You'll learn, don't laugh, or God help you, don't sneeze. Sleeping in a comfortable chair helped me, but I had a broken Clavicle too.
Keep a pillow or blanket close by. If you have to cough or sneeze. Hold it tightly against your stomach and ribs. The pressure seems to help. Don't try to stop coughing if you need to. That leads to pneumonia on top of broken ribs.
The hardest thing I had to deal with was remembering to still protect them once they started healing and quit hurting all the time. I always end up re-hurting them shortly after they start feeling better. A couple weeks might still be agressive depending on your body.
I wish you the best of luck.
I have dislocated my clavicle twice (sternoclavicular joint dislocation). Hurts like hell.Quote:
Originally Posted by a64pilot
The biggest concern with rib fractures is with damage to the underlying lung. If the ribs are merely cracked, they will heal fairly promptly. If they are broken in such a fashion that the ends are displaced with respect to one another, the fracture is unstable, and there exists a constant risk of a puncture of the lung (see the thread on pneumothorax). In that case, I would advise someone not to dive for at least 4 to 6 weeks, until callus has stabilized the fractures.
With a cracked rib, the big issue is pain and the unwillingness to take a full, deep breath because of it. Once the pain has begun to decrease to where breathing is pretty effortless, it should be all right to dive. You can't immobilize ribs, and there is little point to avoiding mild activity.
Dislocated ribs hurt like stink -- but after two or three days, when the first, intense pain has decreased, a chiropractor can often put them back in place, with enormous relief to the patient. It is important to know that they are not cracked, though, because chiropractic intervention with cracked ribs can make the patient much worse. (Ask me how I know this!)
What LCF said (post #18). There is not much to do for broken ribs except to tape 'em up and do pain relieving things. But if you have a displaced fracture and puncture the lung's lining, you may get a pneumothorax that will finish your diving.
See a doc and have a chest x-ray; go from there. And feel better!
Barbara
Actually, we don't tape rib fractures any more. What happens when you do that is that people develop pneumonia, from inability to expand the lung and clear secretions. Treatment nowadays is just pain medications and good pulmonary toilet.
Also, a traumatic pneumothorax is not the death sentence to diving that a spontaneous one is, because it does not necessarily imply any problem with the underlying lung.
The x-ray was pretty clear about being fractured, I took a sneezing fit this morning and wanted to cry, ok I cried a little bit. John844 is right, my pillow is my new best friend.Quote:
Originally Posted by cavedivingwoman
Last January while doing somthing more dangerous than cave diving (riding a horse) I had three rib fractures, two of which were displaced. I had my ribs plated. This is a relativly new procedure. I work in a operating room and I had only seen it done once before. Two and a half weeks later my buddies left for NFL without me. I almost went along. By the middle of the week I was wishing I had went. I side mount and feel I could have dived. At one month out I could shovel a manure spredder full without any problems or pain. That is pretty fast recovery for a 60 year old. :) I believe in plates.
It's funny how many people on this forum have practice at doing that :smt081Quote:
Originally Posted by bullfrog
So true my friend.
+1 from another veteran manure shoveller. Most of the bones I have broken were horse-related.
My first actual job was as a barn boy, taking and shoveling **** at a summer camp.
I've broken about 20 bones in horse-related incidents, and only broke my eye socket diving. Diving is clearly safer.
I'll stick with safe hobbies like cave diving and motorcycle riding!Quote:
Originally Posted by LCF
You must be a 3 day event rider.Quote:
Originally Posted by LCF
Dressage nowadays, but I used to jump. Worst injuries have all been handling horses on the ground.
My worst injuries have been on the ground, too, but I started on top of a horse. Then we changed places, so that the horse was on top. She tripped and did a forward somersault on landing from a jump in slippery going. Broke my right clavicle when I hit the ground, then right scapula and a couple ribs when the horse came down on top of me. Then a couple of good scalp lacerations when she was scrambling to get up off me. The horse was uninjured - I think I was her air bag. To onlookers I'm sure it must have looked like something from the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote cartoons. Fortunately I was 16 at the time, and healed up fast.
Everyone is a doctor on the internet ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by Superlyte27
Morgan, one of my worst accidents was having a horse catch the back pole of an oxer between his front legs, and somersaulting just like you describe. Only mine didn't land on me, thank God; all I ended up with was a broken clavicle and a ruined saddle.
A horse is a motorcycle with a small brain.
Agreed, but is that a good thing or a bad thing? :)Quote:
Originally Posted by bullfrog
I was actually joking in my earlier post - motorcycle injury rates being as bad as they are.
Depends on if they use it or not. Some days good but more often bad. Like when they figure out how to eject you.
I dunno . . . I think the major thought in a horse's brain most of the time is "Don't get eaten", and the other thought is, "What can I eat?" Ejecting riders is simply too much work most of the time, unless the rider begins to resemble a mountain lion :)
LOL - A friend of mine says:Quote:
Originally Posted by LCF
Everything in a horse's world falls into one of three categories.
1) Things that horses eat.
2) Things that eat horses.
3) Things that are of no concern to horses.
Depends on how bad the break is.Quote:
Originally Posted by darkdiver211
At least 2 months.
Your better to ask an expert. But I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express
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