There are a variety of reasons for rib pain. One of the common reasons is injury to your mid spine (thoracic) or one of the small joints joining the ribs to the spine. Often these problems produce only referred rib pain around the chest and not a lot of back pain. You may have strained a muscle or sprained a ligament close to the spine which has caused the problem. It may have occurred during the night or the day before. If the problem is coming from your spine or is soft tissue related then physiotherapy will assist. Manual therapy and an intense home program of stretches should improve the situation. See your G.P for a full assessment if this problem doesn’t settle with physiotherapy as there are other things that can cause this sort of pain, such as heart or lung problems, and they need to be picked up quickly. Your local physiotherapist should be able to advise you on this. A full assessment is necessary to ensure the diagnosis is correct.
