ribs (the ones kept in a cage)

OK lol in addition to my other ailments it seems I have torn a cartilage under one of my ribs (right side, the one just above where my tummy stops being round, i think the third up)

Mainly it turns when I'm trying to get to sleep: I've had to start sleeping sitting upright, which OK I can, but I'd rather not.

It began while swimming a weak ago -- just a persistent sharp tweak, not intolerable, every time I made a (breast) stroke. And it was awkward to sleep on but not awful. Then on Saturday, as I was trying to find a comfy position in bed, there was a loud crack and it got quite a lot worse. I googled "cracked rib" there and then and -- among various other things -- it suggested sleeping upright. On Monday I went to the health centre and the nurse poked at it a bit and said she thought it was likely cartilage not cracked bone. Which is good I guess, tho cartilage takes longer to mend :(

No x-ray for now: contact them again if symptoms get worse. "Can I still swim?" I asked. "Oh, you'll know if you can't," she grinned. Anyway I did, last night -- and it was fine in the pool, though I think I paid for it overnight and may give it a miss for a couple of weeks. It's fine during the day, I just have to turn a bit gingerly. Hurts when I laugh of course, and when I cough. It isn't restricting my breathing. I could definitely do without it, but I'm not actually losing significant sleep I don't think. I might go buy a heat pad and the wherewithal for an icepack that isn't frozen peas (which always ends badly, with unfrozen peas turning up squished in bed weeks later). I'm medicating with over-the-counter painkillers: I only need to take them at night.

Anyway, your thoughts and shared experience and advice, ilx!

I have no idea how it happened -- likeliest explanation is coughing I think, then making it worse by sleeping awkwardly and turning inadvisedly

I will express sympathy for your state of discomfort in lieu of the 'Bullet with Butterfly Wings' joke I so desperately want to make.

i've cracked my ribs a few times - bike crashes, falls while running, levering myself up through an awkward loft hatch. most recently i was fixing something on a bike that needed a bit of oomph to loosen it, so i braced the frame against my rib cage and gave the spanner a big old heave, only for my rib to go crunch under the effort (the sodding bolt didn't shift one bit). this has all been in the last ten years, i don't remember hurting them at all when i was younger despite being just as daft and careless - maybe they get a bit less supple as we age? anyhow, i didn't find anything that really eased the pain, they just felt really tender for about three weeks, especially when you bend over to lift things etc. and then one day they just magically stop hurting. good thing that your breathing is unimpeded, i think that chest infections can settle in if you start taking shallow breaths all the time to avoid expanding your rack

cracked a back rib blocking a football some winters ago leading to small puncture in lung leading to week hospitalisation with pneumonia over the course of idk a week ignoring the symptoms it was good b- would do again

maybe they get a bit less supple as we age

i think this is a given, plus i am also on a fvckton of meds currently in respect of my ongoing atrial fibrillation -- i asked the nurse if any of them had a side effect of brittling bones a bit, she checked and said as far as she could see no but she definitely checked at some length before saying no

ah the intracostal tear. happened to me in a jiu jitsu context a few years ago. took about five weeks to heal completely but the discomfort decreased pretty rapidly. laughing hurt but after a couple days i was able to sleep a little better.

ok much better today -- managed several hours sleep not sitting up

subject to the usual weird geometry of -- having once found a position and arrangement of pillows to sleep comfortably *on* the side with the pain -- having to move (to close the window when my heating came on at 6.34am) and then being totally unable to reconstruct the comfy position, as if it had never been

i'm guessing one problem with nights being bad is that you're still for long periods, in a way that may slightly strain the injury without it seeming to hurt much as you fall asleep: so when you wake it's really jabbing, as if the inflammation has been gradually building up?

i can now go the entire day without even a tweak, so it's on the mend and only really makes itself noticed at night when you notice everything and gaze bleakly up into the dark as terrors swarm tbh

If you feel uncomfortable in the night, please understand it is just your skeleton’s inherent need for freedom.

Soon. pic.twitter.com/fPtDG1Ob8I

— March of the S̵̨͗k̵̻̽ë̵̦ĺ̶͉ë̶̱t̸̡̀ỏ̷̝n̷͇͋s̸̝̈́ (@marchofthenorth) October 16, 2018