Cracked/Bruised Rib? (A little long)

[HipChick]

I'm afraid I may have cracked or bruised ribs from coughing too hard. About 4 weeks ago, I developed a bad cough & chest congestion due to allergies. For the first week, I had such a terrible cough that it literally kept me up all night. Then it seemed to subside so I continued to self medicate & actually continued to improve slightly. Unfortunately, I never got completely better so near the end of the 4th week (last Thursday), I finally went to the doctor because I was hurting so bad in my lung/chest/ribcage that I thought it could be something worse than just allergies or bronchitis. She diagnosed me with an infection & prescribed antibiotics, an expectorant, & a different kind of nasal inhaler. She also took a lung x-ray but didn't see anything suspicious. At first, I took 2 weeks off from exercise & started back very slowly on the 3rd week. Last week, I started doing more intense Cathe workouts again. This morning, I did Boot Camp & it went pretty good but now the right side of my ribcage is hurting worse than ever (just under my breast). It hurts to the touch & to breathe in deeply. I looked it up on the internet & the symptoms are consistent with cracked or badly bruised ribs. I understand that not much can be done for this but does anyone have any advice as to what types of exercise or activities I should avoid in order to aid in the healing process? I have IMAX2 lined up for tomorrow & I really don't want to continue to miss my intense workouts but I also don't want to further aggravate an injury. Oh, please don't tell me to resort to full rest again!:-( Although I understand if that's what it going to take to get better. Any advice?

Thanks for any input you can offer,
Kel

 

[buffettgirl]

I fell down a set of stairs a couple years ago and bruised my ribs. I couldn't even think of exercising. I think I took about 2 weeks off completely. Good luck. I know how sore you are!

 

[LauraMax]

I actually sprained my oblique when I was bench pressing, of all things (just goes to show you how much you use your core even when you think you're not). Also I was just getting over bronchitis & I have never felt such pain as when I coughed w/a sprained oblique!

Maybe this is what happened to you? It's just under the right side of my chest, more along the side.

Basically I've been avoiding all upper body workouts, any kind of core exercises & high impact aerobics (yes, I'm going crazy LOL). As of tomorrow it'll have been a week & it's gone from constant pain to kind of a dull throb. I'm hoping by the end of this week I'll be back into the high intensity stuff.

 

[HipChick]

Although it had already been hurting to some degree, it just became really painful after my workout this morning & I think the activities that aggravated it were chest work & abs. So it sounds sort of similar to your injury, LauraMax, except the pain is in the front of my body, rather than the side. I know I should probably just take more time off but I just took 2 weeks to recover from illness so I was really wanting to keep at it. But if the pain continues to be this intense, I'm afraid my body will dictate what I need to do, like Robin said. Anyway, thanks for your input & kind words. I guess I just need to pay attention to how I'm feeling & what causes any further pain & go from there.

Thanks again!
Kel

P.S. - Hope you feel better soon too, LauraMax.