Ok so how long do damaged ribs take to heal????

combatdwarf

So it is now over three weeks since I decided to jump off my bike onto the road and my ribs still hurt :-(





They have been x-rayed - no visible fracture or pneumothorax :-) possibly tore an intercostal muscle :-(



So the question is when can I get back to proper training (I have 13 weeks (I think) to the UK 70.3)???



Any ideas

I.

Jelly legs

Mate i'm just giving some friendly advise, go to the Doctor !





As much as we can give advise on what to eat or SHAVING, no one can tell you how long its going to take to heal.



We cant see it, touch it, x ray it.

Blinkybaz

I damaged the musecles around my ribs once and will never do it again if I can help it. Itr hurt to greathe, cough and laugh. All in all in took 2 months to heal properly.

The problem is that everuthing you do involves those muscles so you never rest them properly.



Good luck and maybe see the doc again if aint getting better.

hussler

I strained my intercostals in November last year. They take about 8 weeks to heal and this means resting them. Every movement you do puts strain on them so its very difficult to do anything without them hurting - therfore damaging them more.



I didnt train at all for 8 weeks apart from very light spinning on the turbo and just tried to do day to day activities such as breathing, coughing etc without causing too much pain.



In 13 weeks until your race... if all goes well, you should be ok. You may only get 3-4 weeks of good training though so I wouldnt set any top goals with this race.... maybe see this one as gauge of fitness and try and enter another half IM later in the season...



Keep your spirits up!

wyno70

I've had the misfortune to break a number of bones and can safely say, that broken or even damaged ribs are probably the most painful and longest healing injury you can have!



Sorry, I'm sure thats not the news you wanted but the long and short of it is, you probably won't be able to do an awful lot until it's sorted or you'll aggravate it.



A visit to the doc's is fairly pointless as he'll just say, yep damaged ribs, can't do a lot!!



As for how long it'll take, who knows, depends on how bad they are I guess! Once I had a motorbike accident, they were seriously bruised, it took 6 months to heal properly. Another time I came of my road bike, fractured 2 and it was pretty much sorted in 8 weeks.



Sorry, that probably hasn't cheered you up a lot!



Good luck with ironman 70.3!!!!!!!!!!!

combatdwarf

Thanks for the advice - pretty much what I guessed....they are gradually feeling better - I managed 1750m in the pool this morning, but it is on the bike I really struggle due to using them during climbing [:(]



Fingers crossed I will get a few good weeks of training in

treefrog

I recall doing very minor damage to my ribs once and it was very painful as was breathing moving laughing drinking and it took about 2 weeks to improve