hey guys it’s Hina Sheth here from rebalance physical therapy here in Philadelphia and in Narberth Pennsylvania which is on the main line and I’m here to talk to all of you who have been experiencing rib pain after maybe having a fall or some type of a traumatic incident around the chest or the ribcage and perhaps you went to the ER and they didn’t find anything significant going on no fracture no nothing or maybe it’s been a long time that you perhaps did have a fracture and it healed but you’re still having pain
and possibly right now you might be feeling chest pain you might be knowing that you’re feeling rib pain or you’re having stiffness or feeling like you can’t breathe so all of these things could be signs that you’re still having basically issues around the rib joint or where the rib connects to the spine and that there’s a musculoskeletal involvement now what could be happening and what can we do about it so I’m gonna turn to my model here now this is basically the rib cage okay so you’ve got the sternum here you’ve
got cartilage that connects the rib cage okay so these are all the different ribs and the ribs kind of come back around and they attach to what’s called your thoracic spine so here is your spine so some of you may even be experiencing back pain in the middle of the back okay ever since you have this injury alright so obviously layered on top okay of this joint alright is a ton of muscle and a ton of tissue so now I’m gonna go to my picture right here okay so this is again representative the sternum the cartilage
and then all these little ribs that kind of spiral around and they connect up in the back onto the spine now on top of this is this musculature that I was talking about these muscles right in through here connect in between the ribs and this is called your inner cost and then there’s other musculature that layers on top and you can have right here this is called your PEC minor then there’s another big PEC muscle called your PEC major and that’s basically the breast tissue or underneath the underneath the breast area is called the
pectoralis muscle okay and then you have other muscles that also connect through the ribs that kind of come down underneath that you know they’re called your serratus and they connect on to your shoulder blade in the back so a lot of people that you know experienced any type of rib problem or rib injury can also over time possibly develop shoulder problems shoulder blade problems and also you can see right here this is your collarbone but on your collarbone you have other muscles that connect up to your head and neck and if this isn’t
functioning right your ribcage actually moves with your shoulder and it also moves with your head and neck and so if you have problems here over time these muscles basically you know in terms of when they get injured protectively they can start to tighten up and if that tightens up and stiffens up it can also prevent from it can prevent the collarbone from moving it can prevent your shoulder blade from moving correctly it can cause shoulder issues and so this can become basically a musculoskeletal issue and so what can be
basically done about this now usually when you go to a chiropractor or you know and any person who does a lot of joint work they’ll go in and they’ll probably try and mobilize the rib or move the rib okay and they might even go in the back and they’ll probably start to do some spinal adjustments to see if that helps now sometimes that can help however if you’re continuing to have this pain there could also be stuff going on in between all of these muscles that I just talked about and if you’re
also one of these people that are experiencing shoulder blade head and neck pain headaches after an injury like this or even shoulder pain then all of this musculature from the front and in the back okay you have a lot of muscles that are attached into the back okay because if we go back this model right the ribcage kind of comes back around and attaches here and there’s a bunch of muscles here your shoulder blade would go right here there’s a bunch of muscles here they can also become problematic and that can
then lead to joints moving incorrectly and over time becoming painful so the reason why I brought this up is because I had most recently I was speaking to someone on the phone who had said that she injured her rib it’s been six to eight weeks and she went to the ER and they couldn’t find anything going on and it the pain hasn’t necessarily gone away so this is the exact explanation that I gave her is that all of this could be involved and this is what we need to evaluate see what’s going on and then
treat it and most you know most of the time these injuries are they progress really really well if they’ve been treated in the correct fashion so if you are someone that is having any type of rib dysfunction rib pain in the absence of a fracture or maybe a healed fracture and symptoms aren’t going away and you live in the Philadelphia area then obviously give us a call we’d be happy to talk to you get you in and get you healed and fixed up and get getting you back on to your normal activities or
your sport or whatever you want to play or if you’re someone who has already tried to seek out treatment through previous physical therapy chiropractic or some other type of mechanism and your pain hasn’t gone away then perhaps it hasn’t been looked at in this integrated holistic way which is how we treat here at rebalance so you know check out our website come to WWE balance PT comm that’s Ari be a LAN C e PT comm and we’ll kind of tell you all about our practice and then you can also inquire
about a possible phone consultation that’s free or an in-person consultation that’s free alright so I hope that was helpful and I hope you guys have a wonderful day take care
