I crashed my bike 10 days ago going about 25 mph and landed on the pavement on my left side/shoulder. Went to the ER, x-rays were negative for obvious breaks and I was diagnosed with “chest wall and rib contusions”…aka bruised ribs.
After 10 days, not much improvement to report. Lots of pain inhaling/exhaling. Swimming is most difficult. I admit I have not taken it very easy during this period of time.
Has anyone dealt with this before and if so, can you tell me what to expect for recovery? Also, I keep reading about “out of place ribs” that supposedly a Chiropractor can put back in place. Never heard of that.
I bruised my ribs at Easter. They hurt! The first 2 weeks are the worse then they slowly start to get better. Took about 6 weeks to fully go away, and that is what I heard from others as well. Bike and run, I also was aggressively stretching after the first two weeks (Lay flat on your back… to a while for me to even be able to do this. Then when flat lift you arm up 90 degree angle then slowly over your hear). I also got a couple massages, hurt like hell but helped.
Yes if a rib is out your chiro can tell you. Mine took a tuning fork to each rib to check for a hair line fracture. Said since I didn’t jump off the table I was good to go.
I broke several ribs last year about this time. I was told that breaks often do not show up on xrays at first. So if the pain continues, you may want a second look once they start to heal.
There is nothing you can really do about them, except let them heal. That being said…swimming helped me, but that was after doing nothing for 2 MONTHS
Smaller fractures may not show on routine Xrays. Also, the overlying muscles will bruise and can hurt for a while. If there is point tenderness in the rib, it’s likely fractured and you’ll have pain for 4-6 weeks. In my recent crash, only one rib fracture showed on the Xrays, but I clearly had several elsewhere, that were still bothering me occasionally, 6 weeks out.
Been there twice.
You’re looking at 4-8 weeks. I couldn’t swim for the first two weeks, raced a sprint after 6 and they still hurt a little. Running can hurt too, as they jostle. Nothing you can do but let them heal. Swimming will just make it worse.
I fell on the trail run portion of a duathlon, whacked my ribs and a few days later had xrays, diagnosis cracked and brusied ribs. doc advised me not to do an upcoming 50 mile mtn bike race because of soreness, but I took ibuprofen and did it anyway. Sneezing, coughing, other body functions- OUCH.
End of story- I also had a bruised kidney that did not show up on xray and at end of the mtb race ended up with a blod clot in kidney and and in hospital… moral of story is be careful, wait until it heals and don’t do 50 mile mtb races with broken ribs…
I fractured a rib last August during the Haulin’ Aspen Trail Marathon. I was running along, having fun, talking with a friend and the next thing I know I was on my side with a nice pointy rock right into the ribs and a little blood to show for my stupidity. I got up and ran the rest of the marathon (of course it happened at mile 5) but it definitely hurt. I guess everyone is different because while swimming was painful for me, running was the worst. Every so often it would feel like someone was stabbing me in the side with an icepick. Downhills were especially bad. In the end everything worked out but it was about six weeks before I was pain free.
I have some right now and it sucks. 1st week I could barely breathe when I rode. My hr was about 20 beats higher than normal up climbs because I could not get air. This week it hurts but not as bad. I notice that I cannot go really hard on the bike because it hurts to engage my core the way one does when climbing fast as opposed to medium or easy.
My story is similar to the others here: 6-8 weeks of pain and it gets worse before it gets better. I was pretty inactive during the time because I also had a shattered colar bone. I’m not sure if the inactivity hastened or hindered the healing.
Bruised my ribs 8 weeks before my 1st Ironman in 2000 . Took me 6 weeks to recover…hurt like hell to breath deeply, sneeze, and laugh. I eased into all workouts, esp. swimming and took lots of tylenol.
I cracked a rib inAugust '04 and raced the Great Buckeye 1/2 IM 8 days later.
I was very sore the first few days, and could barely do anything.
I went to a doctor and was told that the breathing hard would in fact speed up the recovery, but the pain would be hard to bear.
I almost didn’t fly to the race, but went anyways and ended up with a check, which was nice, but racing like that hurt like hell. The flight home was pretty painful as well, especially lugging the bike around the airport and up and down the stairs.
Back then, I knew at the time Lisa Bentley had recently been thgough some similar problems, so her and I exchanged a few emails. Here is the copy of what she sent me ( good advice!):
Hi there – sorry to hear about your ribs – but be sure to get them checked.
I could only ride my computrainer at first. I could not swim or run. I rode every day, but just aerobically because if you breath too hard, your ribs will hurt. After 2 weeks, I could do some controlled harder sessions on the bike. I ran 3.5 weeks after the accident and it was only painfree after 5 weeks. I had 4 broken ribs and one was broken in two places. But I also had a broken arm.
Started swimming after 3.5 weeks – kicking only. Had no ability to hold my core strong for about 5 weeks.
Be careful of doing too much because if your crack displaces, your rib could piece your lung and that is very bad.
I went to physio and we did some breathing exercises to keep my lungs functioning (the break made me suspectible to lung problems). I also went for a therapy called FSM or frequency specific microcurrent – it sped up the healing. I cannot describe it at all – you might want to find a clinic that has it available.
Was wondering about this as I have been dealing with it for about 4 weeks now after attempting to fly down a hill in a trail race and it is VERY slow in getting better. Definitely worse in the AM and gets better through the day. Swimming isnt too bad but long days on the aerobars seem to bother me when done and transitions from bike to run (well once a couple weeks ago) sucked as well. I guess next time I will just try and run down the hill instead of dive. Hoping this weekends race doesnt hurt things. Good luck in the recovery and thanks for the post.
