Weird thing

[WindsweptRissa]

Hi I have asthma with small airways disease (I’ve also had 3 bacterial infections in the past 12 months including one just recently). I’ve had this weird thing happen to my rib cage in the past few months. It doesn’t happen very often, e.g. it happened two days ago and a couple of weeks before that, and before that just every now and then (but can’t remember how often because I’ve been ignoring it). However it’s weird because it always happens at the same time. I’ll be lying in bed and just waking up first thing in the morning. I’ll then sleepily roll onto my side to get out of the bed and then suddenly with no warning I get this pain around my rib cage. It’s like every single muscle in my rib cage has gone into spasm at once and everything feels very tight. I can still breathe but it is very intense and I’m unable to move until it subsides, which usually takes a couple of minutes (although feels longer). Then it eases but I’ll feel kind of achey and stiff for most of the day. When it first happened I thought maybe I’d pulled a muscle the day before, then when it happened again I thought maybe it was because I’d been coughing a lot. But it just seems a bit odd that it doesn’t happen at any other time, e.g. when I’ve had a coughing fit. Does anyone else experience something similar or know why this happens? It’s not exactly a big problem, just a bit weird.

[Ergendl]

I'm not sure if this is relevant, but when I went to an osteopath a lot of years ago, he found my diaphragm was occasionally going into spasm. He helped me break that cycle by putting my fingers underneath my lower ribs, breathing in and out until it relaxes, and then moving along the ribs a little to do it again.

[WindsweptRissa in reply to Ergendl]

Interesting. How did it feel when your diaphragm went into spasm?

[Ergendl in reply to WindsweptRissa]

I didn't realise it was happening, but I had aches at either end of the diaphragm, by my lower ribs. Some people end up with a rigid diaphragm which stops the lower part of the rib cage moving.

Singing exercises that train the breathing muscles including the diaphragm, can help.