Re: Need help with my heaving breast

"David Cohen" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
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"Steve Freides" <[email hidden]> wrote

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"Delenn" <[email hidden]> wrote

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MFW is pretty lame these days. I'm going to give you a chance to
play doctor with my breast. Help me out if you can.

The new silicone ones seem pretty safe. Before and after jpegs would
be nice.

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A week ago I fell quite resoundingly onto cement. I sustained minor
injuries including a skinned knee and a bruised shoulder. But I
also noticed afterwards that the bottom of my ribcage on the right
center (below my breast) was sore to the touch. Sitting still
doesn't hurt it unless I breath very deeply.

Breathing is very overrated. Try a few days without it. The pain
should be gone.

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So I figured I bruised a rib, whatever that means. But through-out
the week I get a stabbing-pulled-muscle sort of pain when I move my
arm in such a way as to use my lower chest muscles. It hurts
unexpectly when I roll over in bed, for example. Swimming, cycling
and running don't hurt it. Hugging my children hurts it.

And today, over a week later, I'm in doing Nautilus (I know, I know,
you can beat me up about the overuse of machines later) and the
Super Pullover thing really kills me. Then I get on the seated row
and pushing my chest against the pad really kills me. Then I use
the abdominal crunch machine and that REALLY kills it. Now I'm
confused about what's wrong with me

A uncontrollable urge to continue to do things that hurt? Millions of
years of evolution go into your body's pain response to injury. A
caveman would have said to himself, "Og, Og hurt when lift rock. No
lift rock for a while. Have snusnu with Moog, maybe." But does a
Vegas-hating Massechusettserianite have as much sense as Og?
NOOOOOOOO...

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and it feels worse than ever.

Is it:

a.) some sort of bone bruise that can safely be ignored
b.) a toomah
d.) a muscle tear requiring rest (from breathing?)
c.) a pulmonary embolism about to wreak havoc on me
e.) jpegs of my breast required for further diagnostics

Assume I have excellent access to medical care as long as I go in
already knowing exactly what's wrong with me.

If you'll forgive a serious answer, I once had a broken rib, or so my
doctor thought, but they never could find anything that looked broken
on the x-rays. My doctor explained to me that, first of all, not all
broken ribs are visible on x-rays and, second, that whether I'd
broken a rib, strained/torn an intercostal muscle or something else
in that area, or whatever else, the distinction wasn't important.
You basically take it easy, try to keep from making it worse,
immobilize it a little or a lot as need be for your comfort, and
expect it to take a long time to heal.

Steve has found a non-moron doctor. Steve, post his name and address!

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And that's how it went for me - I still don't know exactly what I did
but it was painful in much the manner you describe and it was very
slow to heal. While it was healing, I just worked around it, doing
what I could with weights, which for some moves meant I had almost no
limitations while for others it meant I had to shelve them for a few
weeks.

If it matters, I broke/tore/sprained whatever through weeks of pretty
violent coughing while I had pneumonia, and mine was along the back
and to the side, not in the front.

A good treatment is to get a rib brace, basically an ace bandage
that's about 8 inches wide or so. A surgical supply store would have
them. If you don't need it, then don't bother - I couldn't sleep
unless I wore the thing but managed to avoid using it during the day
for the most part.

DANGER DANGER DANGER.

While immobilizing the rib cage can reduce pain, it can also lead to
respiratory problems FAR more serious that the original injury. Use
such a brace as little as possible. Better to maximize the use of pain
meds, while doing 10 really deep breaths every waking hour.

A good concern, David, although I wonder how important it is for active
people - I imagine (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the danger is
pneumonia or other ailment that might come about when part of the lungs
don't get to inflate normally. In my case, and probably Delenn's as
well, if my hypothesis is correct, it shouldn't be much cause for
concern. For example, I continued to take TKD classes but I put the
brace on to take the class and took it off afterwards. I did, however,
need it to be able to sleep through the night for the first few weeks,
but the kind of brace I used had velcro and was easily adjustable, so
I'd tweak how tight it was to the situation at hand, and only wore it as
tight as was necessary according to my best guesstimates.

-S-
http://www.kbnj.com

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And snusnu with Moog. Very theraputic.

David

"Steve Freides" <[email hidden]> wrote

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"David Cohen" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

"Steve Freides" <[email hidden]> wrote

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A good treatment is to get a rib brace, basically an ace bandage that's
about 8 inches wide or so. A surgical supply store would have them. If
you don't need it, then don't bother - I couldn't sleep unless I wore
the thing but managed to avoid using it during the day for the most
part.

DANGER DANGER DANGER.

While immobilizing the rib cage can reduce pain, it can also lead to
respiratory problems FAR more serious that the original injury. Use such
a brace as little as possible. Better to maximize the use of pain meds,
while doing 10 really deep breaths every waking hour.

A good concern, David, although I wonder how important it is for active
people - I imagine (please correct me if I'm wrong) that the danger is
pneumonia or other ailment that might come about when part of the lungs
don't get to inflate normally. In my case, and probably Delenn's as well,
if my hypothesis is correct, it shouldn't be much cause for concern. For
example, I continued to take TKD classes but I put the brace on to take
the class and took it off afterwards. I did, however, need it to be able
to sleep through the night for the first few weeks, but the kind of brace
I used had velcro and was easily adjustable, so I'd tweak how tight it was
to the situation at hand, and only wore it as tight as was necessary
according to my best guesstimates.

Of course. It's all a matter of degrees. A little bit of use in an otherwise
active person presents little problem. The old tape-the-chest method caused
lots of problems and is never used. Stretchy velcro braces can be ok if, as
you say, used a little.

David