Rib out of place

Good morning Doctors,

I recently went to my family doctor because of some rib pain that was preventing me from training. It would hurt to roll out of bed in the morning, hurt to reach overhead, etc. He said I likely have a rib out of place and to go to the chiropractor to see if they could reset it. He prescribed me 6 days of methylprednisone (this was completed last Monday) and then ibuprofen 800s 3x a day. I have gone to the chiropractor 3 times now, the first time he said it was moved back into place and said to take it easy and that I could do cardio and legs (squat not including in doing legs). The last two he said that my back muscles were really tense and likely pulling it back out of place. He gave my some stretches to do and told me to get a massage (covered by insurance) to help release the tension. I know that for performance, the data does not support either stretching or massages as being useful, but I’m wondering if you think that they would be useful for recovering from my “injury”.

I have not been back to the gym yet, but I do plan on going tonight to take it easy as I miss it and want to do something. I want to get back to my normal training as I was making some decent progress before all of this.

Thanks guys, appreciate everything that you do.

Ribs don’t really “go out of place”, and “tense muscles” don’t pull your ribs out of place, either.

Chiropractors therefore can’t really put them “back in place”. Neither can stretching or massage.

I would not recommend taking the steroid medication.

I would recommend continued training - find what you can do and work on that, gradually returning to movements and activities you can tolerate.

Hey Cody,

Thanks for the post and I hope you are feeling better.

That said, I regret to inform you that this entire thing sounds like mismanagement to me. It is highly unlikely that your rib is out of place without severe trauma. It is even more unlikely that the chiropractor is putting anything into place (or out of place, fortunately). Prescribing steroids in this situation is an interesting management plan and while I don’t think they’re appropriate- I have not evaluated you formally.

Your back muscles are unlikely to be doing anything to your ribs pathologically.

While I am not your doctor and cannot evaluate you formally from here, I think you should train normally without restriction. If it gets worse or additional symptoms crop up- you need to see different doctor (not a chiropractor either) to get a real diagnosis.