Broken ribs

[sskasser]

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!

[darkdiver211]

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!

I was carrying laundery down stairs so she didn't have too, and slipped and fell down all 15 steps.

[JamesK]

I was carrying laundery down stairs so she didn't have too, and slipped and fell down all 15 steps.

Damn! That's what you get for being nice! That really sucks though.

[CaveMD]

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!

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.

[a64pilot]

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.

[john844]

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.

[Greenwood_60]

I had a broken Clavicle too.

I have dislocated my clavicle twice (sternoclavicular joint dislocation). Hurts like hell.

[LCF]

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!)

[cavedivingwoman]

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

[LCF]

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.