My last article told the story of how I dislocated my ribs. This one continues to the cure. 🙂
It just wasn’t getting completely better so I ended up going to my colleague Janet who is an excellent massage therapist. We took a lot of advanced training together and worked together, too. She “surrounded the dragon” (the painful rib area) using finger pressure to relax tender muscles.
The dislocated ribs were mid-chest. Janet pressed into the muscles in the upper ribs near my collar bones. She also released (relaxed) the muscles on the sides of my back and spine.
But I just could not let her press into the painful rib joint at my breastbone. I just couldn’t. Way too painful!
And when she gently lifted my head forward a little to work on my neck, oh! That hurt in my mid-chest!
When I left her office I felt pretty good. Things were much better but still it wasn’t “fixed.”
That night in bed, I lifted my head a bit to adjust my pillow under my neck and OH! It hurt in my mid-chest! A LOT! And the rib on the left flipped hard and popped back into place. That was that.
The next day the painful joint at the breastbone was gone. 🙂
Since I dislocated my ribs, I did some research. Ribs can dislocate either at the spine or the breastbone. They can be manipulated back into place by osteopaths, physiotherapists or chiropractors manually (by hand pressure.) And I’ll bet that’s pretty uncomfortable.
But having a skilled massage therapist release all of the muscles that might be involved in the injury was the ticket to my recovery.
Releasing those muscles allowed the rib to shift back into its correct location.
I’m really biased about the value of therapeutic massage anyway and this was just one more reason for me to remain a believer.
Whichever route you take to get your ribs back into place there is one thing I want you to know: Your dislocated ribs can heal.
You have a smart body. It just needs a little help right now.
Update: During the pandemic, I slipped and fell flat on my back and dislocated my ribs again but in a different place! I had to do more self-help home therapy this time (because of the pandemic) but all is well now. Again. 🙂
Hello,
I too had the same experience, except I did not exactly know what was causing the pain. 4 days after the pain started, I assumed it was a pulled muscle only, I had a massage. The next morning I was doing my Foam Rolling on my back and it popped back into place.
The one thing I never read about is that there is still pain after it goes back into place. My question is, how long does this last? I am using a 6 inch ACE bandage to help hold it in place for normal activities of daily living.
Hi Dale,
I apologize for my long delay in responding. Perhaps by now you are all better! The muscles around the rib that moved were stretched and bruised. They were temporarily injured. That’s why they would still be sore. I would estimate that within 6 weeks, all should be well and healed nicely.
I’m glad you had the holistic experience of your rib going back into place.
You may want to get some movement in that area to help complete the healing. If you aren’t comfortable being without the bandage most of the time, then you may spend time when you are still (without the bandage) breathing deeply to move all of the tissues around that rib.
Take care and thank you for writing about your rib being out of place and getting better.
Kathryn
The Pain Relief Coach