Are you suffereing from persistent sharp pain in your chest, ribs or upper back? Could it be inflammation in your rib cage… Let’s find out. Read on to understand some of the common types of rib cage inflammation and the symptoms that identify them. And, learn 3 simple tools to assist you in improving rib cage mobility and helping to allow true healing of inflammation and rib pain
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Inflammation and Rib Pain:
Costochondritis, Illness & 3 Tools to Help
Sometimes rib pain shows up out of nowhere and it can feel sharp, deep and unnerving. But if it’s not a pulled muscle or a misaligned joint, what else could it be?
Hi, I’m Alexis Weidland, osteopath and co-founder of Blossoming Me and Healthy Learning Lounge, and today we’re diving into inflammation based rib pain, what causes it, what it feels like, and three simple ways that you can support your healing at home.
Cocstochondritis
Let’s start with Costochondritis, a common inflammatory condition where the cartilage connecting your ribs to your sternum becomes irritated and overloaded. You typically feel a sharp, stabbing or hot pain in the front of your chest, often close to the sternum. Pain that worsens when you breathe deeply, cough or press the area. Discomfort that flares up with repetitive movements like lifting or twisting, or overhead work.
Why Does This Happen
It’s not uncommon for this to occur after an illness, especially where there’s been persistent coughing or when the rib cage and upper chest have been overused and sensitized.
Stress and poor posture also play a role by reducing thoracic mobility and increasing tension throughout the upper chest and accessory breathing muscles.
Be Aware
The pain often makes people feel anxious because it feels like it could be coming from the heart, and that’s why it’s so important to rule out cardiac or serious organ causes. If the pain feels deep, unrelenting, or doesn’t change with movement.
Once you’ve confirmed its musculoskeletal or inflammatory, then the real healing can begin.
Other common types of rib inflammation includes
Intercostal inflammation from muscle overuse, or again, from post illness,
Posterior rib joint inflammation (and slipping rib syndrome), especially after lifting, impact or poor sleeping posture.
What to do:
Now, here’s the key, rest isn’t enough.
The goal is to reduce the inflammation and to restore movement of the whole rib cage in order to prevent chronic pain cycles.
So here are three gentle and effective strategies that you can try at home, now.
Heat
Using a warm compress or a heat pack in the area of discomfort that can be at the front or at the back, wherever you are feeling most uncomfortable, lie comfortably and just allow your body to rest with this heat, supporting your muscles to relax and allowing a little bit of mobility to come back.
Decompression
Thoracic decompression using a rolled up towel. If you roll up a towel so that it’s about this long and as thick as you like, you place it length weights along your spine, between your shoulder blades, and you’re lying flat on your back. You can support your head with a pillow if needed, and you can have your knees up to support your lower back. Then you can lay your arms out nice and wide and just rest there for a few minutes, possibly even up to 10.
- This allows movement through your thoracic spine
- and relaxing of the muscles of the rib cage at the back.
- It supports your nervous system to relax.
And you can lie here and focus on some gentle, deep breathing.
Breakwork & Nervous System Reset
And thirdly, a gentle breath work, nervous system reset, sitting or lying in a comfortable position, preferably somewhere there’s absolutely no pain. And you can do this with a heat pack if you’d like.
- Close your eyes, relax, and practice deep breathing
- in for the count of four.
- Hold for the count of four and
- out for the count of four.
- If you can, slowly increase the length of your exhale as well.
This helps to lower cortisol levels, and increases vagal tone. And reduces the sympathetic overdrive that fuels chronic inflammation and pain sensitivity.
Seek Medical Assistance
If your pain comes on suddenly without clear physical cause and doesn’t change with posture or position, it’s really important to rule out heart and other organ involvement.
And if you are at all concerned, especially if it’s affecting your breathing, seek immediate medical support.
Final Word
Those three techniques I discussed are not aggressive, but they can be powerful. They work by bringing your body out of the fight – flight – stress response pattern and creating a condition that is needed for healing and repair.
If you’ve had rib pain that just keeps flaring up, especially after stress or illness or poor posture positions, these inflammatory patterns could be a missing link.
And that’s exactly what we address inside the Rib Cage Reset mini-course with guided breath work, targeted mobility and myofascial focused release tools. I walk you through each step, to help your rib cage; move better; and hurt less.
If you’re interested, click the link below and let’s help your body to calm down and come back into balance.
That’s it for now… got any questions?
So that’s it for today. Did it raise any questions or aha moments? If so, I’d love to hear them. So please put those in the comment section. I love answering questions. I hope you found today useful. And if you know someone who could use this information, please share it. Remember to comment, like and subscribe.
Until next time and in health, bye for now.
Click the Button Below for my RibCage Reset min-course
Book appointment here
(pick Turramurra location; osteopath; select Alexis as practitioner, then choose our special Foot and Posture Assessment)
About Blossoming Me
BlossomingMe offers a fully integrated approach to your wellbeing. Located on Sydney’s Upper North Shore. Sarah is our Cranio-sacral and Remedial Massage Therapist and health and lifestyle coach. She can help relieve those problematic knots, tightness and other specific ailments to promote a healthy recovery. These complementary massage therapies can be combined to suit your needs, and include: craniosacral therapy, shiatsu, acupressure, reiki, remedial, swedish, and body-mind-massage.
Our qualified Osteopath, Alexis, offers a drug free, minimally invasive, “hands on” treatment focusing on the musculoskeletal system with its associated muscles, tendons, ligaments, membranes, bones and joints. Alexis takes a functional approach. This means that she focuses on the way a component (body part, tissue or group of tissues) performs its role, as well as the way the body works, performs and integrates as a whole. Our team can support you to improve your posture and therefore your overall health.