I injured myself last Friday. Nothing of the usual home injuries. Didn't take a fall, step on a pin, hit my thumb with a hammer, pick up the business end of a soldering iron, or bang my head on an open cupboard door. No, I executed a sudden maneuver. I was outdoors, testing a type of lightweight fabric used for roofing, when my sample started blowing away from me. I lunged for it after chasing it across the roof a few feet, to catch it. Something happened in my ribcage and knocked the wind out of me temporarily. It hurt like the dickens at first, but I managed to mostly get through the rest of the day without too much grief. Besides, it was late in the afternoon. You try reaching a doctor then! As long as I wasn't having any trouble breathing after I caught my breath, it didn't seem worthy of an ER visit, either.
It's amazing all the info you can find on the 'nets. Costochondritis, rib fractures, separated ribs, and intercostal muscle strain, all described. I settled on the muscle strain thing. Figured I'd pulled something, it would keep hurting worse for a few days and then start getting better. Read up on the treatment for all of the above, and mostly it didn't seem to matter which it was, the treatment was all the same. So, I went and bought a "rib belt" at the local favorite pharmacy-and-surgical-supplies joint. "Hospital Grade," the small box proudly announced. And only $20, too! Twenty bucks for basically a white, heavy duty 7-inch wide version of an Ace bandage, with velcro. I've got a very nice waist nipper, that cost less on sale.
So, Monday, life sucked and I could barely move. The thing just was getting worse and worse every day, as I had guessed it would, except I hadn't guessed that bad. I called a sports/rehabilitative doc I'd used before (the man saved my back!) to set up an appointment. They could have easily fit me in the same day due to all the cancellations from the snowstorm, except considering my delicate state, decided maybe they didn't want me travelling in those conditions, so they worked me in for the next day.
I like this doc. Anyway, while I'm peeling off shirts, I'm telling him how I tried looking up stuff and was pretty sure it must be a muscle thing. He spends a couple minutes poking around and stuff and he's practically laughing. "It's a broken rib. I'm sending you for some pictures, but that's what it is." Trust me, he's not as cruel as this sounds. He has the bedside manner of a good friend.
Oh, yeah, and while I was peeling off layers, he took one glance at my shiny new rib belt and said, "Get rid of that. We don't use those anymore. They cause pneumonia. It squashes the air sacs in your lungs, the alveoli."
So, I traipse through a mile of twisty passageways and stairwells in the great Gormenghast of a hospital complex to get to the xray department, survive waiting, get called, get left for forgotten in some changing cupboard for 15 minutes, get told to hold my breath by a technician whose microphone doesn't work for the part about telling me to breathe again, get my films, and somehow manage to find my way back to the right part of the warren.
The doc calls the head radiologist to discuss things, announces my rib is broken, and then tries showing me the nearly invisible break, which really neither of us can see on our own as far as I can tell. He also tells me that the short while I've been wearing the rib belt shows on the x-rays and the radiologist picked it right up. Another lecture about them causing partial lung collapses leading to infections, and so forth.
Okay, okay, I won't wear it again!
Two observations:
1) The damned things do make you feel better. I'm hurting three times more without it now. Well, it probably doesn't help that I fell asleep without taking more ibuprofen, too.
2) Corsetry. If a stupid elastic rib belt causes that much grief, what about serious corsets? My corset gets WAAAAAY tighter than that elastic band, and it's not actually that uncomfortable, even if it causes somewhat shallower breathing. Well, I mean when I don't have a broken rib. I'd be in no hurry to try it right now. Do corset afficionados get a lot of pneumonia and lung problems? I haven't heard of it, although from the way my doc was freaking over the "Hospital Grade" rib belt, I'd expect to.
Oh, yeah, for what it's worth, this is my first fracture. I don't have osteoporosis. Somehow, it was just a freak accident caused by the way I bent and lunged, causing a couple of ribs to clash with each other. As the doctor said, whatever I did, "Don't do that again."
Comments
Been there, done that
I was in a car accident my first year of college, passenger in an MGB that was broadsided by a full-sized Dodge on my side. 11 ribs broken in 17 different places and a punctured lung. The rib belt was standard treatment then, and I wore one for almost a year.
Based on my own experience, I'd have to say the risk is not that bad, but in today's lawsuit-aversion climate the type of treatment has changed dramatically. My current doctor tells me they would have had me on the table sticking all the bits back together if I had such an injury now. In '75 they were more concerned with getting me up and mobile as quickly as possible.
BTW, I had a similiar injury last month, fell on some ice and smashed my back on the doorsill of my car, so I really do feel your pain. In the last 5 weeks I've only worked just over 2 of them.
Corsets? When you are 100 percent healthy, and they are worn for short periods, are okay. Worn constantly, yes, they are going to reshape your body, and that will have long-term effects. I wouldn't recommend them for long term use, based on my personal experience. I need all the lung capacity I can get.
KJT
"All lies in jest, still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest"
The Boxer - Simon & Garfunkel
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
Broken ribs
My dad broke a rib while coughing real hard!
On the other hand, I've fallen off the roof a number of times, once I even fell from a 20 ft high eave, without ever suffering any injuries!
Weird things happen.
Mr. Ram
Me too
I slipped off a badly positioned diving board and cracked a rib or two in the edge of the pool. It hurt. I was on a dinghy racing holiday in Menorca (where the dormice are :) ) and I managed to continue sailing if I tightened my buoyancy aid and managed to avoid capsizing (it would have been impossible to climb back into the boat). I was quite pleased to win a race or two. Most painful thing was getting out of bed in the morning - one false move and absolute agony.
I attended a local clinic and the doctor checked me over to make sure a lung wasn't punctured and sent me on my way. I too was advised not to strap it up. Apart from when I was actually sailing I just left it to heal. Seems to be a very painful but non-serious injury.
On serious corsetry: I understand Victorian ladies were prone to fainting fits which were quite likely cause by over-tight corsets but not sure about pneumonia or other lung infections.
Remember - over 99% of the world's population has more than the average number of legs.
Geoff
Victorians did die from chest complaints
Large numbers of Victorian women did die from chest complaints, including tubercular disease. In the absence of antibiotics, they'd also have died from all sorts of other lung infections. Remember King Henry VIII, only inherited the throne because his elder brother died of a cold after playing tennis.
The problem with any suportive garment, is they weaken natural muscle function, so corsets actually weaken backs and diaphragm muscles, as well as constrict the lungs. They might well have contributed to simple lung condition become worse or becoming pneumonia.
It might be interesting to note that fashion also contributed to the deaths and serious injuries during this period. The long skirts worn by Victorian and Edwardian women, led to many of them dying or being horribly injured by fire - remember that most of them cooked on open fires or on ranges.
Angharad.
Angharad
Angharad
There was even a specific injury caused by corseting...
The physicians of the time, if one can dignify them by the modern term, called it "chicken breast," a potentially fatal condition in which the ribs -- especially the lower and "floating" ribs -- fractured under pressure of the stays and bindings and thrust under the sternum, usually puncturing the pleura, often the lung, and quite possibly causing grievous injury to the heart, leaving the woman lucky enough to survive immediate morbidity subject to later death through pneumonia and other infections.
Corseting was, for the Europaean women of the time, as crippling and debilitating as foot-binding was for Chinese women, and part and parcel of a culture which denigrated women and commodified them in many vile and abusive manners not confined to mandatory "fashion statements."
Puddin'
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Doc, it hurts when I do this.
Then don't do that!
How about?
Can I do it just until I need glasses? ;-)
Yuri!
Yuri!
Oh my... feel better soon.
Oh my... feel better soon. :(
Hugs
Kristy