Otherwise, you can heal at home. Most people with broken ribs do not need surgery. In the emergency room, you may have received a strong medicine such as a nerve block or narcotics if you were in severe pain. You will not have a belt or a bandage around your chest because these would keep your ribs from moving when you breathe or cough. This may lead to a lung infection pneumonia.
Apply an ice pack 20 minutes of every hour you are awake for the first 2 days, then 10 to 20 minutes 3 times daily as needed to reduce pain and swelling. Wrap the ice pack in a cloth before applying to the injured area. You may need prescription pain medicines narcotics to keep your pain under control while your bones heal. If your pain is not severe, you can use ibuprofen Advil, Motrin or naproxen Aleve, Naprosyn.
You can buy these pain medicines at the store. Acetaminophen Tylenol may also be used for pain by most people. If you have liver disease talk with your provider before taking this medicine.
To help prevent a collapsed lung or lung infection, do slow deep-breathing and gentle coughing exercises every 2 hours. Holding a pillow or blanket against your injured rib can make these less painful. You may need to take your pain medicine first. Your provider may tell you to use a device called a spirometer to help with the breathing exercises.
These exercises help prevent a partial lung collapse and pneumonia. It is important to stay active. Do not rest in bed all day. Depending on which rib breaks and the severity of the injury, your heart and lungs may be at risk. A serious break in one of the three top ribs could damage the aorta, the large artery that emerges from the top of the heart and delivers blood to much of your body.
Other blood vessels in or near the heart may also be at risk. Another potential complication of a broken rib is a punctured lung. A break in one of the middle ribs that causes a jagged bone edge to penetrate the lung could potentially cause the lung to collapse.
A break in one of the lower ribs can cut or puncture the liver, kidney, or spleen if the break is dramatic. These types of complications are more common if you have multiple broken ribs. Imaging tests, such as an MRI, can usually reveal injury to one of your internal organs or blood vessels.
Also try to include as much detail as possible when describing the incident that caused the break. Most broken ribs resolve within six weeks. Bruised ribs can make it painful to breathe and move and may affect lung health. Here are 30 possible causes for this symptom. Feeling pain under you left ribs? Here's what could be causing it and when you should seek emergency treatment. A stress fracture is a tiny crack in a bone, also called a hairline fracture.
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It occurs when multiple adjacent ribs are broken in multiple places, separating a segment which is free-floating and moves independently. The most common ribs fractured are the 7th through 10 th ribs. Fractures of the first and second ribs are rare but may be associated with serious damage to the brachial plexus of nerves, the subclavian vessels or associated with head, facial or thoracic aorta injuries.
A lower rib fracture is more likely associated with injuries to the diaphragm, liver or spleen. The most common mechanism causing rib fractures is blunt trauma i.
Blunt trauma causes rib fractures by exerting direct pressure on the rib causing it to break. Although the injury mechanism itself is an important consideration when discussing rib fractures; patient specific considerations are also important. Patients with advanced age, osteoporosis or osteopenia have an increased risk of number and severity of fractures.
Rib fractures are typically diagnosed on chest x-ray and the severity of the fracture is easily seen. Simple non-displaced fractures appear as cracks in the rib or a jagged edge. Displaced fractures appear to lack contour along the edge of the rib on x-ray. Floating segments of ribs, known as a flail chest, can also be easily seen on x-ray. Other imaging modalities such as CT scans also diagnose rib fractures and are more sensitive to identify them.
CT scans are useful to determine if underlying lung injury is present, known as a contusion, or to identify if air has escaped the lung as a pneumothorax.
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