Feeling pain in your ribs or chest wall can be alarming. You may immediately worry that you’re having a heart attack. Don’t ignore it. Many different conditions, from the very minor to the quite serious – including a heart attack – can cause rib pain. Our experts are here to help quickly pinpoint the cause and provide the best treatment for you.
And if a broken rib is the cause of your pain, you’re in the right place. We specialize in rib fracture stabilization surgery so you can heal faster with less pain and return to your everyday activities more quickly.
What is rib cage pain?
In general, rib pain makes it hard for you to take a deep breath, twist your body or put pressure on your chest.
A range of conditions can cause sore ribs, include a pulled muscle, bruised or broken rib, or even acid reflux. Broken ribs are quite common and can take six weeks to six months to heal.
Sometimes though, pain in your rib cage can be a sign of something more serious, such as a heart attack or even cancer.
Because it’s difficult to determine what might be causing your rib pain, get emergency medical help. If you think you’re having a heart attack, call 911 immediately.
Rib pain causes
Don’t take any chances if you’re experiencing rib or chest pain. Sometimes this pain can be caused by a heart attack. Get emergency care right away; it could save your life.
If a heart condition isn’t the cause of your sore ribs, it could be from a:
- Pulled muscle
- Broken or bruised rib
- Internal injury
- Sports injury, accident or fall
- Muscle spasm
- Inflamed cartilage
- Acid reflux, gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) or other esophageal conditions
- Anxiety or other conditions
- Cancer
Rib pain diagnosis
To precisely identify the cause of your rib pain, we’ll ask about your discomfort, listen carefully to your symptoms and give you a thorough physical exam. We may also order radiographic imaging, such as an X-ray or CT scan, to help diagnose the cause.
Find out more about our heart and vascular testing and diagnosis.
Rib pain treatment
We’ll develop a treatment plan that works best for you based on your pain level and the underlying injury or condition that’s causing your non-cardiac rib pain.
We may recommend:
- Home care such as rest, cold compresses and anti-inflammatory medication for injuries like a pulled muscle or bruised rib, which often heal on their own with time
- Integrative medicine, such as acupuncture, massage or other holistic treatments
- Pain management of ongoing discomfort for longer-term pain relief that may include steroid injections or counseling
- Physical therapy or rehabilitation, supervised exercise and therapy to help you heal faster and prevent re-injury
- Referral to one of our gastroenterologists, a doctor who specializes in the digestive system, if the underlying cause is linked to your esophagus
- Rib fracture stabilization (rib plating), if you have multiple broken ribs, complicated fractures or an active lifestyle that makes recovery challenging, to help you recover more quickly and less painfully. In this type of thoracic surgery, we connect titanium plates across your broken ribs to stabilize the fractures.
The ribs protect some of your body’s most important organs inside your chest—including your heart and lungs. As a cardiologist, I focus on this area of the body and I understand how complex it can be to distinguish between all the vital systems that converge around the ribs when pain appears.
There are 12 ribs on each side of your chest, and they run from your spine in the back to your sternum, or breast bone, in the front. They are connected to your breast bone by cartilage, which is a strong but flexible tissue that allows the rib cage to expand during breathing. Muscles called intercostal muscles run between adjacent ribs and help move the chest wall, especially during breathing. Pain in your rib cage can come from any of these components. If you’re experiencing pain between or around your ribs, paying close attention to your symptoms can help you identify the cause.
Symptoms to Watch For
Since there are a variety of causes that can lead to pain in your ribs, it can be helpful to chat with a doctor about any other symptoms you’re experiencing. These symptoms can be clues to what’s causing your pain.
The following are just some of the symptoms that often appear with pain in the ribs:
- Skin changes outside the ribs, like bruising
- Pain with breathing, coughing, or sneezing
- Pain when pressing on the area
- Difficulty breathing
When you use the K Health app, we’ll ask you about many symptoms related to your pain in order to get a full picture of what’s going on with your health. Here are the most common symptoms our users reported experiencing with their rib cage pain:
- Flank pain
- Shoulder pain
- Shortness of breath
- Shoulder blade pain
Rib Pain from Coughing
If your ribs hurt when you cough or sneeze, it could be because coughing causes repeated movement of your intercostal muscles, as well as other muscles like the muscles in your abdomen. When you’ve got rib pain from coughing too much, this repeated movement, particularly if it’s frequent and forceful, could result in a pulled muscle causing pain or sore ribs. A cold can also cause pleuritis, which is inflammation of the lining of your lungs and the inner aspect of your chest wall (called pleura).
I hear from many users who complain of cough, but a little less than 1% also experience pain in their ribs with coughing. According to data from over 8,000 health dialogues within the K Health app, women aged 26-55 are 18% more likely to report this type of pain with coughing compared to men of the same age. So while it’s relatively rare, it is more common among women.
Possible Conditions Causing Rib Cage Pain
Our app works by showing you how doctors have diagnosed symptoms like rib cage pain in people like you in the past. But since we’ve had over 8,000 chats with users who reported pain in their ribs, we took a look at the conditions most commonly associated with this symptom.
Here’s what you need to know about these conditions:
- Injuries: Musculoskeletal chest pain can be caused by trauma or injury to the ribs, intercostal muscles, or skin and other tissues overlying the ribs. This is very common. Costochondritis, or inflammation of the cartilage that connects your ribs to your breast bone, is another musculoskeletal cause of rib pain.
- Infections: Infections including upper respiratory infection, bronchitis, or pneumonia can also cause pain in your ribs. In this case, the pain may be caused by the infection itself, a pulled rib muscle from coughing, or by pleuritis, or inflammation of your pleura, the inside chest wall. Other causes of pleuritis include autoimmune disorders, certain medications, or injury to your ribs or adjacent structures.
Other Less Common Conditions
- Pulmonary embolism: A pulmonary embolism is a dangerous condition and a medical emergency, in which a blood clot gets lodged in the arteries that supply the lungs.
- Fibromyalgia: Fibromyalgia is a condition associated with musculoskeletal pain in different parts of your body, as well as fatigue and mood complaints.
- Shingles: Shingles is caused by a viral infection (the same one that causes chicken pox) that results in a painful rash, as well as other symptoms.
Other causes may include a sprain in the muscles of your neck (cervical sprain) or inflammation in your stomach (peptic ulcer disease), parts of your body which are located nearby. Rib or chest pain is also commonly associated with mood disorders, like anxiety. Lung cancer may also cause rib cage pain, although it is a less common cause.
How to Address Your Rib Pain and Possible Treatments
Your rib cage is a collection of bones and tissues, and any of these components can cause rib pain, so it’s important to explore the cause. Anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen can help with pain. If your pain is caused by cough, you can try a cough suppressant. While I always recommend a personal assessment, here are the most common ways people address their pain:
- Speak to a primary care doctor: Most people with rib cage pain are evaluated by a primary care doctor, who will ask them questions, examine them, and order any appropriate tests, like an x-ray of the ribs.
- Take over-the-counter painkillers: Try taking anti-inflammatory medications, like ibuprofen (Advil or Motrin) or acetaminophen (Tylenol).
- Try a cough suppressant: If your pain is associated with a cough, you could try a cough suppressant, such as dextromethorphan (Robitussin) to give your ribs a rest from the coughing motion.
- Watch for serious symptoms: Rib or chest pain may be a sign of a serious health issue, so it’s important to seek care if you have severe pain, especially if associated with other symptoms like difficulty breathing, fainting, irregular heartbeat, or profuse sweating.
Prevention Tips
Here are some things you can do to avoid or minimize pain in your ribs:
- Protect your rib cage while it’s injured or hurting. The ribs protect some of your most vital organs, and you want to avoid any movements that could make your pain worse.
- If you have a cold with a bad cough, try taking a cough suppressant like dextromethorphan and an anti-inflammatory agent like ibuprofen.
How K Health Can Help
Did you know you can access online urgent care with K Health?
Check your symptoms, explore conditions and treatments, and if needed, text with a healthcare provider in minutes.
K Health’s AI-powered app is HIPAA compliant and is based on 20 years of clinical data.
K Health articles are all written and reviewed by MDs, PhDs, NPs, or PharmDs and are for informational purposes only. This information does not constitute and should not be relied on for professional medical advice. Always talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of any treatment.