Another annoying injury-anyone else? Torn intercostal?

[Jodie10]

I have been plagued by injuries since my daughter was born. It is so annoying. Some old, some new and some related to pregnancy.

This time it is recurring, sharp pain in my rib cage. Just throwing it out to see if anyone has had a similar problem. My doctor checked me for a broken rib so its not that (thank God) but I'm self-diagnosing (with some help from online sites) a torn intercostal muscle. It never goes away, even after three months off when I had hernia repair and did absolutely NO exercise.

So what's the drill with this? I'm guessing MRI to diagnose, and then what-arthroscopic surgery?

[Jodie10]

Anybody? Headed to doc next week, in the meantime I'm taping my ribcage because I don't feel like missing workouts.

[Garage Rat]

Ive had something that sounds the same deep in the intercostal area.
It took a long time to go away,like 8-9 months.
I had to train around it and do nothing to irritate it.
Im not a medical professional but more than likely the doc will tell you to take time off to let it heal.
I very irritating and frustrating injury.
I dont know how it happened either.
Good luck.

[paolo59]

I would imagine that this is one of the most common gym injuries that people have to deal with. There's not really a whole lot that one can do other than what Garage Rat mentioned in his post. You can work around it, gingerly, but you'll have to give it time to heal. Mine took around two months or so. There were certain lifts that I just couldn't do. Others didn't bother me in the least. Hope it heals up fast!

[Jodie10]

Thank you both for the responses!

Garage Rat, the thing that seems to irritate it most is running. Easy enough to give that up, I"m trying to build/bulk anyway.

I hope it doesn't take 8-9 months... but it already had 3 and came right back. Ah well... it is what it is