Can you injure yourself from coughing to hard?

Answer 1

possibly break a rib, but that usually is in real serious cases.

Answer 2

Absolutely!

Coughing or sneezing too hard/forcibly can cause muscle sprains, muscle strains, pulled cartilage/tendons, even broken bones.

Another poster said aneurysms.....well, don't worry about that. Because that is something that is so rare to occur and still not validated by test results. Meaning, if the person did not cough or sneeze, would they still have the aneurysm? Probably. So coughing is negligible in those instances.

But because of where your lungs sit against your ribs and your sternum, you can cause injury quite easily, called mechanical injury. The sternum (chest bone) is a very small bone that sits right in the middle of your chest, between your breasts. It is a rather solid bone, very thick. If you ever witness open heart surgery, you will notice it takes quite a lot of force to crack the sternum, it takes power tools. Same with the ribs, but the ribs arent as thick as the sternum, so they can break like a wishbone if the pressure is just right.

But, more often than not, you injure what connects the ribs to the sternum, and this is the costocartilage. Cartilage is what your ears and tip of your nose is made of, so you can see injury is very easy with a more pliable material. A rough cough or severe can cause a strain in the cartilage and the muscle (latissimus dorsi and/or pectoralis major/minor). And that causes a LOT of pain.

As you age, your bones tend to get brittle. That is why you hear of patients with lung problems such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), Emphasyma, or bronchitis literally fracture their rib bones. Because as we age, the amount of calcium in our body decreases, and if we don't take supplements for that decreased amount, it will only get worse as our bodies stop making that mineral. And when a bone loses calcium, it becomes very porous and hollow, making a once sturdy bone become susceptible to breaks quite easily, this is called osteoporosis.

I hope that answered your question.

Answer 3

You can certainly make yourself very uncomfortable. You can break blood vessels in the eye and get horrific headaches. You can also strain the vocal cords.
Why don't you see a doctor about a cough suppressant? Over the counter Delsym 12 hour really works about that long.

Answer 4

Likewise, depending on the patient's condition, aneurysms and strokes can be caused by coughing, and if they're moving liquid while coughing, this can lead to choking in rare cases.

Answer 5

Yes! My mom has emphysema/COPD and has cracked a rib and herniated a disc from coughing too hard/long.

Answer 6

yep...I currently have 2 non-displaced rib fractures from coughing and have some damage to my vocal cords. But wow, do I have abs of steel. :)

Answer 7

Yes, My husband is just getting aver severe bronchitis and he cracked a rib and pulled several muscles in his side. He was in alot of pain!

Answer 8

depends on what you have. my sister had pnumonia (sp) and the dr. told her not to cough if at all possible because it would cause scaring in her lung tissue. And yea i have heard of people cracking ribs.

Answer 9

my brother ,who smokes, coughed hard enough he gave himself a hernia!!and the dummy still smokes!!