Could This Be Causing your back pain???

Intercostal muscles, What are those? Well lets break down the word shall we.

Inter= between costal = (for short) ribs

So intercostal muscles are the muscles between your ribs. Still need a visual?? Welp here you go.........

Now either you've gotten hungry, disgusted, or now see that the muscle between the ribs are intercostal muscles.

How can this affect back pain?

As you can see the ribs go around our body. The intercostal muscles help move the chest wall. They also assist in breathing, well the mechanical aspect of breathing.

Some symptoms of intercostal strain can look like:

pain when breathing

sharp pulling pain in the chest

and of course localized pain in the back

What can cause the pain?

Coughing/Sneezing ( Hello allergy season)

Heavy lifting with twisting motion

increased activity or physical demands of the chest and /or upper body

which can range from gardening to tennis

What can help is a massage to release the tension and help alleviate the pain along with some stretches at home

In this video Precious is locating the strained muscle, working with the patient's breathing that she coaches them on, and creating a passive movement to manipulate the muscle. After treatment the patient stated that they went from only getting 4 hours of sleep at at time due to pain to getting a solid 12 hours in. We call that PROGRESS!!!!

Here are some stretches from one of our therapists, Precious Walker, LMT that may be beneficial .