I sneezed a couple of days ago and the area around my floating ribs on my right side started hurting. It mainly hurts when I cough or sneeze, but also when I bend down to pick up the baby. A pulled muscle seems more likely, but my aunt says that her coworker broke a rib while sneezing. Snopes is inconclusive and Google returned conflicting results.
A friend of mine was given this exact diagnosis about three weeks ago. He sneezed while sitting in a chair and bending over to pick something up.
We aren’t either of us convinced the diagnosis is spot on–his GP is a lazy old fart about ten minutes away from retirement. But that was the diagnosis, anyway.
I’ve seen a number of people who say they broke their rib coughing. I’ve seen people with broken ribs who have had severe pain after coughing. I see a lot of people with broken ribs seeking narcotics, some who have pain and some who seem to be exaggerating their pain.
Three layers of muscles hook on to the rib and pulling these muscles is more common than breaking a rib. Rib fractures can be pretty subtle on X-ray, though, and are pretty easily missed.
I’ve broken a few once or twice playing hockey in my youth. Once on the same hit I got a concussion, (the force of the blow breaking my helmet and forcing me to get a root canal on the dead tooth later), separated my shoulder, broke both wrists and broke one rib.
Guess which hurt the most. Not even close. Standing, sitting, walking, breathing…all horrible pain. You’d know it.