RealSurf Surfers' Forum

Ok so I got belted just under the sternum on the left side a few weeks ago sparring. Hurt bad for a few days but X-rays show no crack or break. Since then general movement is ok, and I've been light contact sparring this week.

Sleeping on my side still is too uncomfortable and I sneezed this morning and it was a hot burning agonising pain for a minute or so. I sneezed last week and it hurt but not like today. Odd I thought


How long is this going to suck for?

And what about surfing?

And what do you do to help heal it? My doctor says yo do nothing but I can't just do nothing for weeks.

My dad's currently in hospital with 7 rib fractures. Basically being managed with massives doses of drugs. They've told him 8 weeks until he'll have no pain. But he's 86.

I had a cracked rib and I think it was a month or so before I was ok. I just took painkillers. Really nothing else you can do. I was surfing not long after I did it but I was probably high on codeine and made it worse.

Rest and drugs are really the only cure.

6-8 hrs at 110c is best

I cracked a couple of ribs a while back now. Left the beach in an ambulance. I had to walk about 800m back to the car park, the last 100m was shaky. I was going to drive myself but when I needed help to put my board in my car and then found bending over to get into the car was far too painful I had to give up on that idea. My x-rays also showed nothing but apparently hairline fractures often don't show, especially with ribs.

I reckon my ribs were OK in about 2-3 weeks but then I discovered I'd also torn my supraspinatus tendon in my shoulder and that took quite a bit of time to heal and required a bit of physiotherapy. The pain from the ribs had masked it. I remember the ambo asking me at the time if I was sore anywhere else and I mentioned my shoulder but said it was nothing really.

Once my ribs felt ok I was mountain biking some gentle trails. I tried surfing and not only was paddling pretty hard, getting up was slow and ungainly too, so I let it go for a while, maybe another month.