I fell 10 days ago and assume I either bruised or cracked a rib. Up until this morning it only hurt a little but I had a big sneeze and now any exertion is painful. I'd prefer not to go to the doctor for 2 reasons; it's my understanding they don't do anything for broke ribs [other than medication] and I don't want my wife to know - she has too much on her plate.

Anyone have any idea how long something like that takes to heal?

 

I cracked a couple of ribs at work once. Was out of work about 6y or 7 weeks. Wads ***** to sleep laying down. Slept in easy chair for about 3 weeks. Ok walking doing light things but nothing heavy

 

Ouch!
I'm hoping I just irritated it this morning. I'm used to some pain [part of getting older ] but today it's a struggle to do some stuff.

 

sorry, i've had broken/cracked/bruised ribs... not fun. you prob know that only a radiograph will tell the damage, and they normally don't do anything abt it... if it is a bad one, you may try a wrap around your chest to limit the 'inhale' size and heat therapy or Voltaren pain rub (basically an NSAID).

 

Sorry to hear you got hurt. But bruised or cracked ribs will take many weeks to heal. Your wife is going know something is up. Best you tell her that you have "slight" injury, but you'll manage. Saying the heating pad or truss gives a little bit of relief. Most likely it may keep her at ease knowing you can handle it.

 

I hate to keep things from her but she has too many things to worry about with her brother. He's back in the hospice house until Saturday morning but she needs to decide whether or not to bring him back home or send him to a nursing home. A lot depends on whether or not they can regulate his meds enough. She didn't get near enough sleep the last time he was here.

 

About 3 years ago I had a February flu with coughing fits that were so bad I either cracked a rib, pulled a tendon, or bruised a muscle. It took about 2 weeks to go from "it hurts to breathe" to "it hurts to move" and another 2 weeks until "it hurts to cough hard" and then finally I didn't notice it.

A fall will injure muscles, tendons, and bone. The speed of healing depends on the availability of nutrients and oxygen, which is limited by blood flow. Muscles heal in days, tendons heal in a week, bones take several weeks to heal. There is very little you can do about that. If the pain was triggered by a sneeze, the "good" news is that it sounds like muscle pain, where the sneeze "pulled" that muscle.
random website making the same point
https://bodypaintips.com/pulled-rib-muscle-treatment/

The BIG point is that you're now going to be aware that you breath 2 ways- with your RIBS and with yoru DIAPHRAGM.

The "intercostal" muscles attach to the ribs, and expands/contracts your chest to breathe. The diaphragm expands/contracts your abdomen to breath. Normally they work together without you thinking about it. However, there are yoga and singing exercises that can teach you to breath mostly with ribs or mostly with the diaphragm. You may find that learning how to use 'belly breathing" is going to reduce the rib movement and discomfort.

 

Muscle sounds better than bone
It doesn't hurt to breathe. While there is a constant dull pain - it isn't bad. It does hurt to bend over, get up or movements that a little bit of effort. .... and up until this morning it was more nuisance than anything else.

 

I can feel your pain, or I should say I've probably felt similar. Whenever I've damaged ribs nothing medically was done short of avoiding things that hurt and taking ibuprofen for the pain. I took high doses initially then dropped to normal doses to maintain the level in my blood. If you cough up blood I would get to a doctor as you may have punctured a lung.

Broken ribs was sorta easy to tell. It hurt really bad. I could put my finger on the area where it hurt. At first I could feel the ends of the bones moving past each other and had a good bit of pain from even normal movements. I ended up keeping a big, firm squeezy pillow handy and I would hug it hard when I had to cough or sneeze.

When I've cracked ribs it's also painful. No pain when just sitting there but again coughing, sneezing or a deep breath would let me know. I could feel a tender/sore spot where the fractures were. I could also push on one end of the rib and feel the pain several inches away where the cracks were.

When I used to race the g forces against the hard, conformal seat separated some of my ribs. Nothing was broken but boy did it hurt. I could push on each of my ribs individually for their full length without much discomfort but a cough, sneeze or deep breath hurt. It was a generalized pain. I could tell the area but not a specific location. I got a armored rib vest (manly girdle) specially for racing and it did help and the compression even when not racing helped keep things in place so I had less pain. That was my last rib injury but if I hurt a rib again I'm shopping online for a rib vest or brace to wear.

 

As a former EMT (a long time ago in the 80's), I don't have to tell you that it depends on really what the problem is & we wont know that without tests. So, I strongly suspect a tear or strain as opposed to a break or crack, but that's only a guess.
If that's the case, I agree that all they would most likely do for you at the clinic would be wrap your chest/ribs with an ace bandage & give you an over the counter pain med.
I doubt you'd be able to properly wrap yourself with an ace bandage but you can take something like Ibuprofen etc to help with the pain. However, additionally, I'd tell you try not to lift or do any pulling or straining etc. The more you do, will only prolong the healing process.
If you take Ibuprofen for a few weeks, I'd also tell you to get some Fomotodine like 20mg to help coat & protect your stomach while taking that much Ibuprofen for that length of time. You can get it over the counter. Normally you would take one with each dose of Ibuprofen.

I'll be like Hal:
I do not hold a medical certification of any degree so this is not intended to be taken as medical advice. This is in no way a diagnosis. I am not a medical professional nor am I YOUR medical professional.

Good luck Mark......

 

What, you mean none of you are medical experts

Mainly I just wanted to know how long it would last. For the most part the pain isn't bad, just when certain movements/positions aggravate it. Yesterday was the worst pain wise, not bad this morning.
Currently that is advise that's easy to follow as those are the times when the pain is unbearable .... but even then the extreme pain is short lived.

 

How long it will last... I'm bad about taking it easy so I don't know if I'm a good reference. Each of my rib injuries seemed to take about 3 months but the intense pain went away within a week or so and I was still tender out to 6 months. Surprisingly the broken ribs hurt worst at the beginning but seemed to heal faster. Separating my ribs was an annoying ache with occasional pokes of pain but seemed to take forever to totally heal.

I couldn't wrap my chest tight enough by myself. I ended up wearing my racing rib vest sometimes even when not racing. It was a thin fabric thing with a sheet of rigid plastic that wrapped completely around my body and had big Velcro tabs to adjust it's size. Then it was pretend to be skinny and zip it up to put it on. It held my chest quite tight and the armor limited my movement which also seemed to help. If interested you can search for "kart racing rib vest". I don't see the model I have but there are a lot of options and they run about $100.

 

I have a high dollar back brace that is somewhat similar. Now days I usually only wear it if I'm going on a road trip. I'll probably dig it out and wear If I have any strenuous work to do. Otherwise just paying attention to my movements should be enough.

I've always been just the opposite but somewhere along the line my body started to protest and demand that I take more breaks and do a lot less. My mind still says I can do most anything in a timely matter but my body disagrees