Self Treatment for Rib Pain

We have a link to our Upper Back Pain page which gives great detail about this type of painful condition. On the page is a video of Dr. Justin Davis reviewing how our in-office treatment helps in decrease rib pain and keeps it at bay, but also the Chiropractor recommended self treatment is very important. This painful condition often doesn’t need too extensive of home care, but an ounce of prevention is always worth a pound of cure when it comes to persisting shoulder pain and blade pain that is always there or always seems to come back. And very often a foam roller can be a multi-functional tool that helps with many different types of painful conditions we treat here at Elevation Chiropractic and Rehabilitation, and persisting back pain near the shoulder blade is one of the ways we teach home exercises

Above is a video of Dr. Justin Davis demonstrating how to use a foam roller to help with patient home care for persisting shoulder blade pain. We have to be careful when it comes to recommending home exercises because without a Chiropractor exam it is difficult to acertain what would be a beneficial exercise if you have a rib pain problem. It can also be possible that without getting your painful condition evaluated at a chiropractors office that some of the recommended self treatment we show could actually worsen the cause of shoulder pain and back pain. However for more people than not using a foam roller is a safe strategy one can use to help keep pain from returning in several areas of painful conditions.

Although no one person is the same, and that is included with any type of painful condition that walks into our Tigard OR office, there are often similarities as to what is causing back pain. This is because we live in a mostly sitting society which causes several types of problems in the body, which often leads to rib pain problems. When we sit our posture tends to cause slouching and slumping of the shoulders – see picture at the top of the page. When this rounding of the shoulders and back begins then the peak of the back of our shoulder blade becomes more prominent, which then causes rib pain dysfunction. Dr. Justin Davis jokes that as long as we sit all day then Chiropractors will always be in business because rib pain will always return. This is why we recommend to our Tigard OR patients the use of a foam roller for this type of nagging shoulder pain. The foam roller exercises demonstrated by in the video above directly targets the muscles and joints that lead to the sharp shoulder blade pain experienced by so many. The first part of using a foam roller is to work into the muscles around the back pain area and shoulder blade. Once the muscles are worked into around the shoulder blade pain area then often the rib will reduce gradually on its own. However the nice thing about the foam roller is that it also helps adjust the back and rib areas by rolling. Often patients will feel a pop as they are able to self adjust the back pain area on their own.

Again, there is a large emphasis that before starting any type of self treatment for this type of shoulder blade pain that you first get evaluated by a medical professional, in this case a Chiropractor would be the most specialized provider to evaluate the cause of back pain. You certainly don’t want home exercises to worsen a painful condition as part of your home care that is unnecessary or possibly harmful to what is causing the shoulder problem. To keep pain from returning you need to be active and intentional with what your home exercises, but most importantly know what type of self treatment home care is best for your shoulder blade pain. If you have questions about how Dr. Justin Davis can help you, please call our Tigard OR Chiropractor’s office at 503-206-4620. Additionally if you would like to set up a free 15 minute consultation with Dr. Justin Davis you can click the link above to request an appointment.