In some cases, you might also see bruising on the skin near the break. Depending on the location of the fracture, bending over or twisting your upper body may also trigger sudden pain. Striking or pressing on the fracture will cause pain for at least several weeks. Simple fractures will usually heal by themselves. Doctors may recommend resting to facilitate this. People should avoid activities that involve pulling, pushing, or lifting, as they might make the pain worse or cause more damage to the ribs.
If a person has more than one fractured rib, severe damage, or flail chest, they may need surgery. During the operation, a surgeon will use plates and screws to fasten the broken ribs together.
Surgery will also repair any damage to internal organs, nerves, or blood vessels. In some cases, a bruised or broken rib can result in other health conditions that could even be life-threatening. If a person with a recent bruised or broken rib experiences any of the following symptoms, they should seek medical attention right away:.
If your doctor suspects a rib fracture, he will want to get images of your chest. If you have a more serious injury, you may need additional treatment or possibly surgery. For example, if your lung has been punctured by the sharp end of one of your ribs, you may need to have a procedure done to remove air or blood from inside your chest.
Some people whose ribs are badly injured might need to have them repaired with metal plates, but this is rare. The pain and discomfort from rib injuries can be managed, though a person might need to make some temporary adjustments, even taking time off of work, during the first few days after the injury is sustained.
Some patients notice that the pain and tenderness increases at night when they are in bed trying to go to sleep. In these cases, it can be helpful to avoid lying completely flat. Try sleeping sitting up in a chair to ease the pain. Upright positions can also help with breathing. When coughing, some people find it helpful to hold a pillow against their chest to absorb the sudden movement and steady the torso. The pain of rib injuries may make a person breathe more shallowly and avoid coughing.
However, breathing normally and coughing when the need arises are important for preventing complications. Doing breathing exercises throughout the day can also help. Severe coughing can also cause a rib fracture. These stress fractures tend to occur in the upper or middle ribs.
Some people are more susceptible to broken ribs, including older adults and those with health conditions that affect the bones, such as osteoporosis or osteopenia.
To diagnose a rib fracture, a doctor will usually look for signs of bleeding or bruising during a physical examination. They may ask the person about their pain levels and if it is difficult to breathe.
The next step is usually a chest X-ray with rib detail. A simple hairline fracture will show as a crack or jagged edge on the bone. The doctor will easily be able to see any segments of floating bone on an X-ray. If the doctor suspects that the break has caused a lung injury, such as pneumothorax, they may suggest a CT scan or ultrasound. If the person has trouble breathing or severe chest pain, they should call or the local emergency number immediately.
Immediate medical attention may also be necessary if the pain does not get better after treatment or if the person develops a fever or cough. Simple fractures will usually heal by themselves. Doctors may recommend resting to facilitate this. People should avoid activities that involve pulling, pushing, or lifting, as they might make the pain worse or cause more damage to the ribs.
If a person has more than one fractured rib, severe damage, or flail chest, they may need surgery. During the operation, a surgeon will use plates and screws to fasten the broken ribs together.
Doctors previously thought that the pain and other symptoms of broken ribs lasted no more than 6—8 weeks , but research suggests that many people experience pain for longer than this. People with simple rib fractures can usually recover at home. Seek medical attention immediately if you feel pressure, fullness or a squeezing pain in the center of your chest that lasts for more than a few minutes or pain that extends beyond your chest to your shoulder or arm.
These symptoms can indicate a heart attack. Broken ribs are most commonly caused by direct impacts — such as those from motor vehicle accidents, falls, child abuse or contact sports. Ribs also can be fractured by repetitive trauma from sports like golf and rowing or from severe and prolonged coughing.
A broken rib can injure blood vessels and internal organs. The risk increases with the number of broken ribs. Complications vary depending on which ribs break. Possible complications include:. Mayo Clinic does not endorse companies or products. You really have to do a comprehensive evaluation of that.
Miller: So it sounds to me like a patient who would continue to have pain after about two months probably ought to talk to their physician about maybe giving them a referral to see a thoracic surgeon or yourself. Varghese: Somebody like myself. Yeah, it's not just thoracic surgeons but probably thoracic surgeons that have experience taking care of thoracic trauma patients.
It's sort of the consideration of what's going on with the patients. A lot of patients that I end up seeing I don't operate on with rib fractures, but even trying to figure out what's going on with the patient, making sure there aren't any other associated injuries, see if there are conservative mechanisms or non-surgical options to treat the patient to see if they can get better.
And then if we can't, if there are certain key factors that we see that surgery will make a huge difference, those are the patients that we take to the operating room. Miller: Would you also say that a patient with multiple rib fractures is more likely to need a surgical intervention, perhaps?
Miller: Flail chest, patients where the ribs are not aligned, like even early on if we see very bad fractures where the ribs are completely misaligned, you know that you can wait many weeks and many months, but if they're not in alignment they're not going to heal by themselves. Those are the patients that we often see early on. Miller: Tom, what's your advice to a patient who has had a sporting injury , let's say they fall during water skiing or snow skiing or they're playing football, contact sports, and they come away with some pain in their ribs.
Should they see a physician, should they get an X-ray, what would your advice be to them? Varghese: My advice is don't try to tough it out. Go see somebody right away.
If you have pain that lingers for a couple of hours after the event, and the next day, for example, you wake up and you're still sore and it's not getting any better, go ahead and see your doc. Varghese: I think that the danger signs you should look at are really in relation to the other types of injuries that could occur as a result of the rib fracture.
For example, if the fractured segment goes and pokes an area of the lung, you could have a lung laceration. Those are patients where they'll have difficulty breathing, they could have lung collapse, they could start coughing up blood.
All of those signs are indications that they should go see somebody right away. Announcer: Have a question about a medical procedure? Want to learn more about a health condition?
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