Sternum Injury?

Question

Hi, about 4 years ago I was playing football with a few friends and one of them landed knee first on my sternum, he was about 180lbs. Upon impact I felt no pain what so ever however I did notice that certain body movements caused me to feel pressure directly in the center of my sternum. I didnt put 2 n 2 together back then but just recently have. The pain/pressure has not increased but is still noticable. I was wondering if I should be concerned with this problem. I was thinking about having an x-ray done to see if I have any damage there. And if serious would It be fixable?

Thanks

Answer 1

You had suffered an injury 4 years ago and it takes just about 3 to 4 weeks for a bone to get united if it was broken. This pain is therefore NOT related to the injury 4 years ago. If you are doing some heavy exercises, give your body a time to relax and cool down for a week or ten days. Thereafter you can restart your exercises gradually.

If the pain is not relieved, it might be 'costo-chondritis', which shall require a bit of rest and some pain killers for a week or ten days. Do not massage the area or keep touching the area. Good luck.

Answer 2

Two thngs immediately came to mind: Pleuritic chest pain and costochondritis, though it is would be a good idea to see your doctor who may want to test for/rule out other things.

Below is a link that may help/inform you in the meantime. I wondered about a hairline sternum fracture, but it didn't make sense that this would not have healed over the past four years already. Also, try to see if Tylenol or aspirin help/affect the pain at all.

Otherwise, do go check in with your doctor to confirm what it is, to see what, if anything (beyond aspirin) can be done.

After four years though, and you've not dropped dead yet, it sounds like this is going to be chronic, if not permanent.

Answer 3

It wouldn't hurt to have that checked out with your MD.It may be some muscle soreness that's going on now,and there are allot of muscles in and around the chest area,even a shoulder strain could cause a referred pain in that area.Depending on the x-ray result,I'm sure your Doctor could remedy that for you. Take care. SW RNP

Answer 4

Definately have it checked out. If your strenum was cracked and healed incorrectly could be putting pressure on other more vital areas like the heart, lungs, liver, spleen etc. Hope this helps.

*************************************
"Fact becomes history, history becomes legend, legend becomes myth and eventually it all comes back to bite us in the butt."

The Syko Ward
**************************************