I have just spent the last week and a half down with the flu. One of the worst features of this flu was a very very persistent dry shallow cough. My lungs weren’t actually congested; the cough produced nothing but it was impossible to resist the urge.
So after a week + of constant coughing, all the muscles involved in coughing are terribly sore. To the point where something up under my ribs on the right side literally feels like, if I try to cough, something will break loose or rupture. It’s not simply painful – it feels like there is some kind of damage impending.
Problem is, it turns out that the very last stage of this flu is that now there is some congestion in my lungs, and I really need to cough. The closest description of the feeling I can come up with is that maybe a portion of my lung is getting pinched between two ribs? Does this happen?
Or, is there some kind of ligament that I might be tearing loose? How badly can one hurt oneself from coughing?
People have broken ribs from coughing, but they’re generally very old with advanced osteoporosis.
That said, even the young and healthy can get incredibly sore from coughing.
Go to a doctor. There are prescription medications available that will help you much more than OTC ones. Also, if you’re starting to get some congestion you really need to be checked out for a secondary infection.
Have you considered a cough suppressant? Sounds like you could really use one, yesterday! Give those muscles a chance to recover, BEFORE you tear something! There are lots available to try. Might make the urge, resistible instead!
Is it possible? Yes. Odds are that you simply have very sore muscles which can hurt like a mofo (been there, done that many times) but as noted it is possible to bruise or even crack a rib, or to herniate yourself (although not where you’re indicating, from what I can tell) from excessive violent coughing.
However, IANA doctor in any form, and if you’re worried you should go see one. We here have no way of telling whether your personal circumstances are serious or not.
Not exactly the issue you’re concerned with, but I know people who have ruptured blood vessels in their eyes from excessive coughing. I have done it myself once or twice…
Whooping cough has caused physically robust people to break ribs from coughing, NOT just the very elderly.
I don’t think the OP has broken a rib though (wouldn’t you know it?) but you can get hella sore from coughing. I once had a nasty sinus infection and my sides were absolutely killing me for weeks afterwards, just from all the coughing I did.
The two people that I’ve known to break ribs while caughing were much younger than that. One was about 50 and the other under 40.
This is a good reason, if you have a doctor you can reach out to, to get some Codiene cough medicine (like Tussionex). It’ll knock down how much you cough quite a bit and lessen the pain so you can cough and are able to take deep breaths so you don’t end up with pneumonia.
But at this stage, try pushing on the painful area when you cough. Not that it’ll fix something broken, but sometimes holding the area helps keep it from flexing.
Hopefully, by now you’ve hit the doctor. IANAD, but I have had pneumonia a fair number of times. Yes, you can pull muscles. Yes, people have done rib damage. Get to the doctor for help.
Yes, my friends, that’s why I used the qualifier generally, as there are numerous exceptions to the rule.
Not always, or at least not immediately - when my ribs were broken I didn’t go to a doc for a couple weeks and didn’t realize that’s why they hurt so freakin’ much. Pain is a variable, and it also depends on how badly the rest of your body is hurting as well as how severe the break is.
(My ribs were broken from impact, not from coughing.)
^ This.
If you’re in a lot of pain from coughing you will try to not cough and not cough effectively. That can lead to pneumonia. You don’t want that. If you haven’t already, go to a doctor.
I brought on vitreous detachment in both eyes when I had an unbelievably horrible cough around age 53. Not a huge deal, because vitreous detachment is not serious and it happens to people as they age anyway. But the intense, uncontrollable coughing caused it, in my case.
She didn’t break a rib, but my wife had such soreness from coughing that, just in case, the ER nurse asked her privately if I’d been punching her. (I hadn’t been).
I broke a rib from repeated coughing fits when I had whooping cough in my early 40’s. Now, when I get a cold my coughing is pronounced and lasts longer than before I had whooping cough.