Soft tissue back injury
About a week ago, I slipped on a patch of ice while walking across campus and fell very hard on my back. (I fell so hard as to briefly "see stars" even though my head didn't hit the ground. My neck was sore for a couple days.)
The point of injury that has not gone away is at the point of impact, i.e., between my scapula and spine on my right side. The pain is controllable with ibuprofen and does not affect my breathing. (e.g., I ran a PR VDOT test two days later and have no trouble on my bike) However, it is painful to make a pulling motion as in opening a heavy door, and I about fell over after a sneeze a few days ago. I tried swimming last Friday and had to stop and couldn't lift myself out of the pool. It is modestly sore to palpitation (e.g., if a kid hugs me just right.) But this evening (in preparing for this post), I discovered I could do pullups at the doorjamb without pain.
My assumption from the beginning was that I gave myself some kind of nasty bruise and not a cracked rib, but I am now forced to admit that a week is a long time for a bruise to hurt on use unless it's a pretty serious one.
Does anyone have any thought on whether I should just let it heal for another week vs a more active treatment or need for exam? I am pretty sure it's somewhat better, but definitely not back to normal yet
Thanks in advance.
William
Comments
This is a tough area and will take a few more weeks. It's bone, muscle and nerve all jammed up without a lot of options to stretch it all out like a shoulder or knee so any swelling, spasm, etc can just sit in there.
What have you been doing to try and stretch the area out? your shoulders? You want to be working on the area to try and flush it out but in a more passive way versus hitting the pool and weights, etc.
http://www.athletestreatingathletes...kthoracic/
At that link you'll find some tips for stretching. Start with that and as the tenderness decreases get to work on actually trying to dig out the muscles. ice after 10-15 minutes.
Another option to speed up the process is to get some orders for PT. Let them dig it out, stretch out that shoulder blade and give you stuff to do on your own, moblity and strength wise. They'd also be able to make sure there was nothing more serious in there bone or nerve wise.
For the first few days, it just hurt a lot, so the idea of trying to stretch/work/whatever it wasn't very appealing at all. (My attempt at swimming wasn't an effort to work the muscles - it was a naive attempt to swim not realizing that particular motion would be so nasty.)
I think it's "aged" enough now that I ought to be more active about it, so thanks for the advice. I have a roller etc at home, so I can give that stuff a go. I also have a PT that I worked with a couple of times a few years ago; I'll call them and find out what I need to do to get an appointment over there.
Again, thanks.
Wm