Prolotherapy specialist, Danielle Steilen-Matias, MMS, PA-C discusses a common problem that we treat in patients which are known as slipping rib syndrome and an associated condition called costochondritis. If you have been finding it frustrating to deal with rib pain that comes back again and again, you may have a ligament problem as she explains. In these instances, Prolotherapy can be the treatment of choice because it is the method by which ligaments are stimulated to strengthen.
Hi i’m danielle stylin madis at caring medical i’m one of the prolotherapists at the illinois office i’m talking today about costochondritis and also um an associated condition called slipping rib so most people have maybe heard of costochondritis with um and when they hear it they might think of oh i know someone that had that or i was diagnosed with that as
Like a rib pain that might kind of start in the back kind of radiate maybe around the front of the ribs um some people get what’s called acute costopenditis maybe after just you know a trauma or a fall or a car accident a really acute injury that kind of goes away on its own but there’s actually like a whole group of people that say i’ve had costochondritis
For years or mine keeps coming back well that doesn’t really make sense we got to figure out why and oftentimes um those patients that were maybe told that they had this recurring prostacentritis actually have a condition called slipping rib syndrome which like the name implies is really when your rib slips out of place um most commonly that happens actually
In the back where your rib anchors into your thoracic spine and that joint itself with the rim attaches to your vertebrae is actually very shallow there’s not like a big kind of bony socket that holds the bones together it’s actually a very shallow joint that’s held together mostly by ligaments so if someone you know had a car accident or a trauma um or maybe
They have hypermobility and it was just kind of a smaller rib injury and those ligaments get injured like you think about like stretched out kind of like a rubber band well that’s that joints whole support so if you’ve got all these loose ligaments around there what’ll happen is that bone might just kind of repeatedly or that rib might just repeatedly slip
Out of place hence the diagnosis slipping rib syndrome typically you know patients that have this condition they will they’ll get pain maybe even in the muscles between the ribs that might radiate kind of through the front they might get clicking or popping in the back at those rib attachments they might get really terrible severe muscle spasms as all these
Big muscles in your back kind of tighten to protect the joint or try to work their best to hold it in place and it’s actually pretty debilitating because what typically happens is one rib maybe slips out well then it puts more pressure on the rib above it and the rib below it and you actually can get slipping rib at multiple levels you know chiropractic care
You know can be tried but if somebody you know goes to see a chiropractor and their rib just repeatedly slips out it’s not holding it’s not staying in place the way it should then we really should figure out what’s going on with those ligaments is it that you’re putting the rib back in place but again that shallow joint those loose rubber bands around it can’t
Hold it in place it’s just going to slip right back out again with the slightest activity in patients like that that we see um you know oftentimes like slipping rib is a wonderful prolotherapy case where we’ll actually do injections into those ligaments around those joints to get them to strengthen and tighten and better hold those joints together we do this
Under ultrasound guidance you know find the ligaments do all of our injections uh with that guidance and what should happen and what does happen is that over time that ligament strengthens to the point where that rib falls out less and less and less until it no longer falls out at all often times in those patients we have them actually wear some kind of brace
Or thoracic kind of vest brace just because the ribs are a little bit more unique than maybe other joints of our body and that they’re under a lot of stress every day just with breathing you know it’s easy for me to say hey don’t run on your knee that’s too much force but we you know we gotta breathe every day so oftentimes a brace or some kind of support helps
Just to kind of support that joint while it heals um the amount of treatments of prolotherapy needed for slipping rib is actually um mostly correlated to the amount of times maybe that rib slips out or how severe the case is you know in a very mild case you know we may you know see somebody four or five times for that condition and we’ve had patients that have
Come in where their room pops out 20 times a day well those patients may actually need treatments kind of scheduled sooner together or maybe more total treatments than that
Transcribed from video
Slipping rib syndrome and costochondritis treatment with Prolotherapy By Caring Medical
