HELP! I have a sharp pain in my shoulder & close to lower ribs which the pain increases...?

Question

I have a sharp pain in my shoulder & close to lower ribs which the pain increases with certain movements and breathing. i fell skateboarding and dropped a few feet. when i feel it was hard to breathe and i have very sharp pains. some guy said i may have taken in too much air too my lungs when i fell and the lining may be stuck in my ribs or something like that. it hurts really bad.

Answer 1

You could have cracked a rib when you fell. I know from experience that this can be painful when you breathe. You need to go have your family doctor check it out.

Answer 2

You need to go to a doctor
A few things can happen with what you have described.

Your lung can partially collapse - this means the sponge part of the lung itself pulls away from its bag of membranes/lining on inside of the chest - this causes air and blood to sit where the lung is meant to be and it makes it very hard for the lung to reinflate itself. If you are short of breath this could have occurred. Sometimes if these are only minor they go away by themselves. Sometimes they need treatment.

You may have fractured a rib or torn some cartilage in your ribcage. This can be really painful.

If it is on your left side you may have bruised your speen and had a small bleed into your spleen. This can be VERY serious but often if only minor it will resolve itself.


There is no way of knowing what has happened on the inside with having an Xray to check your ribs and a CT scan to check your lungs/spleen.

Go get it checked

Answer 3

Gas (if someone has it) can get trapped up around the shoulders and around the ribcage (have had personal experience with this in the past) and cause very sharp pains.

I would recommend checking with your dr though to see what they say to make sure there isn't something else going on that could be causing this.