Pain when breathing | Pain with a rib fracture

Pain when breathing

Very typical for the pronounced pain of a rib fracture is the habit of gentle breathing. The broken ribs are constantly moved while breathing, the injury is not immobilized, so every breath causes pain. Breathing therapy can support the healing process of a rib fracture, as the patient can learn with the help of a therapist to breathe as effectively and painlessly as possible despite the injury. Without appropriate therapy (breathing training, pain medication), the movement of the breath can be severely restricted due to the pain and pneumonia can develop, which should be prevented at all costs.

Pain in the back

The ribs can be broken in different places. Especially in the case of a fall backwards (e.g. a fall from a horse), the ribs may be broken in the area of the back. But even if the ribs are broken at the front in the chest area, the pain may be felt especially in the back.

When breathing in deeply or coughing, the ribs are pressed apart and pain occurs. Also bending or turning the upper body can cause pain in the back if the ribs are broken. In many cases, rib fractures in the back area are less painful than elsewhere because the strong back muscles stabilize the fragments and keep them relatively still.

Therapy – How can you relieve the pain?

A broken rib is usually considered healed after about 12 weeks. That is how long it takes for the bone fragments to grow back together. In the first four weeks, the defective bone tissue is broken down and the two ends of the fracture are connected with soft bony tissue (callus), which is hardly able to bear weight.

Once the callus has been formed, the pain caused by the rib fracture subsides and the symptoms are relieved. There are no real therapeutic measures to speed up this healing process, since the body must first form new cartilage mass, as with any other fracture. However, it is advisable to take painkillers to relieve the symptoms and to prevent possible relieving postures caused by the pain.

Often pain-relieving medications contain additional anti-inflammatory substances that counteract the inflammation in the injured tissue.Surgical intervention is rarely used to join the two fragments together. This is used, for example, in the case of a serial rib fracture, when several adjacent ribs are broken or when ribs are splintered. During surgery, the rib pieces are screwed together or fixed with plates.