Control Pain With Acupuncture and Suppress Inflammation With Herbs
By Winston Lee L. Ac, Ph.D., KMD
Most amateur golfers play a round or two a month. It’s not uncommon for them to get their clubs out of storage, hit balls at a driving range, and eagerly practice golf, only to suffer an unexpected rib fracture, which is usually diagnosed with a stress fracture of the ribs.
Greater than 80% of golf injuries have been attributed to overuse. Over time, if not removed, this repetitive loading will exceed the adaptive capacity of bone, eventually resulting in a stress fracture.
The ribs are long, thin bones that start at the sternum in the middle of the chest and connect to the thoracic spine in the middle of the back between the shoulder blades. There are 12 pairs of ribs on each side of the body, but the most commonly fractured ribs are the lower 11 and 12 ribs, called floating ribs. The floating ribs are not connected to the sternum and are vulnerable to external physical pressure. The rib fracture is caused by the pressure generated by a strong golf swing. The force from the golf swing is surprisingly strong, creating an instantaneous squeezing pressure that can crack or break the weakest lower ribs.
In this case, the pain caused by a rib fracture is quite indistinguishable from a simple muscle spasm or tightness. Muscle spasms and rib fractures look similar by a similar location in the lower back or side, and pain occurs when they move their torso, sneeze, cough, etc. Unfortunately, it’s hard to diagnose if they have broken a rib with an X-ray. In particular, the 11th and 12th ribs almost always appear to overlap with other bones on an X-ray, and they’re so thin and small that they can’t be seen well enough on an X-ray at all, and can only be diagnosed with a CT scan, a precise tomography scan.
Suppose it turns out to be a rib fracture. In that case, the best treatment is to keep it as stable as possible: the area cannot be immobilized with plaster or metal, and surgery is not an option because the symptoms are too mild to warrant the risk of general anesthesia. In this case, the only answer is to rest as much as possible, use acupuncture, ice, and physiotherapy to control the pain and prescribe herbal medicines such as Dan Shen, Dang Gui, and Gui Zhi to reduce inflammation.
The obstacle here is that patients who fracture their ribs playing golf are usually very active people who love to exercise. If you ask them to take a few weeks off from exercise, most patients will be too sore to sit still. However, suppose the patient stays calm and is completely relaxed after about four to six weeks. In that case, the pain should be almost gone, and they should be able to return to light exercise.
The most fundamental way to prevent these rib fractures is to avoid swinging too hard in the first place. It is fine for short middles, short irons, and chipping, but they need to be especially careful with drivers, woods, and long irons. Avoiding excessive torso rotation and using more wrist and arm to make a precise swing will often lead to better accuracy and score. It is also important not to hold their breath right before they swing but to exhale relaxed, as this will reduce the pressure on their ribs and make them much less likely to fracture.
