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Cracked or fractured sternum or injured spine?

By Dom moreno | 3 posts, last post
Harold Gladwell, MD answered this Musculoskeletal Chest Pain
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Dom moreno

Alright about a year ago i was riding my dirt bike at the local track when i over shot a triple , i was about 30 feet in the air missed the landing and landed flat! I managed to stay on the bike but when i made contact my head came down so hard my chin smashed into my chest i felt a major POP in the middle of my chest and begain to gasssp for air. After about 5min of slow breathing i was able to catch my breath there was def a soreness in my chest so i called it a day and went home , thought i was ok since i was able to catch my breath? Since then i have had major chest pain/neck pain/ lower back pain also i will get a really bad pain in my chest and when i turn left or right it POPS and the pain is gone this happens more then 20 times a day. i have been to the doctor for everything from thinking i was having a heart attack,Cancer,HIV,bronchitis,pneumonia,depression,axinty the list goes on and on. My question is you think since i never went in for this injury that i could have cracked or fractured my sternum or injuried my spine? When i went in for them thinking i had lung cancer they took a chest xray and also did a CT scan and found nothing wrong with my lungs wondering if they could have seen a crack or fracture or it was over looked since they were looking for cancer? All i know is the pain is starting to get old it never goes away any infoo would be helpful

THANKS!!!:-|

Jill 1954

Dom moreno, I am really sorry to hear all this. You really have serious issues and I hope that you will find a way to get out from that situation.

I smashed my chest as well when I was boarding a couple of years ago at some ski resort in the France. People used to say that I had a huge amount of luck because I was wearing a helmet. They say that I would be dead without it. 

This pain never went away, it was really bad and I could not sleep, eat, take a deep breath, etc. I can say that this was the worst period of my life. X - ray test showed broken sternum and some abdominal issues, but nothing too big. 

I believe that there is nothing wrong with your lungs and I think that you have broken sternum as well, according to all those symptoms. 

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Guest

Being an x-ray tech and having taken many chest x-rays I know that when the radiologist reads them they do look at everything, even if they were looking for cancer they could still notice if you had a cracked rib. Having said that though, many places such as a small doctors offices just rely on the doctor looking at the film and don't have a radiogist reading them with his expert eye as they do in a larger facility such as a hospital. Also if you have a cracked sternum it will most likely not show up on a chest x-ray because a different technique is used for showing the air in the lungs as oppossed to showing the bones and a small crack can be missed especially in the sternum as it also lies right in front of the spine which shows up more with it being larger bones compared to the sternum which is a thinner bone. If we are looking for cracks in the ribs or sternum we do different views turning the patient to the side a bit to project the sternum off the spine so we can see it and also to elongate(stretch) the ribs out so a fracture can be seen. With small cracks there is not much to be done except to let it heal itself. Only if it were really out of place and broken right through posing a threat to your lungs would something be done to fix it. Bear in mind that cracked bones take a while to heal so could be painful for a while. So while I can't tell you if you have a cracked sternum or ribs, only specific x-rays will do that. I hope this information may help you. :)
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repeattutu


great reply it refers to me also
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