INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Millions of people know what it feels like to break or fracture a rib. Most of the time, patients are sent home, told to take it easy and let it heal.

But for some, the pain doesn’t go away ever. But now there’s a procedure to help ease the pain.

Whether it happened during a car crash, a fall, or a ball game, a broken or fractured rib can make every breath you take painful!

“I’ve seen a patient that got a bear hug and broke some ribs,” Dr. Farshad Farnejad, a critical care surgeon, said. “If my fingers are the ribs, they sit on top of a bundle of nerves and vessels. So, any disruption in the bone integrity will kind of impinge on the nerves right underneath each rib. So, it is quite a painful injury.”

When those ribs don’t heal, or when multiple ribs are broken — rib fixation or plating can help. Surgeons screw titanium plates along the surface of the broken or cracked ribs.

“If a rib (is) broken like this, you basically realign it and put a plate across it to reinforce it. So, then it has a structural integrity back,” Farnejad said.

Rib plating can be done either directly under the skin, with the plate laying on top of the ribs, or from inside the chest cavity, underneath the ribs — depending on severity of the injury.

“Once you put the plates in, the plates stay in forever,” Farnejad said.

This procedure can be done immediately after the injury occurs, or even years later.

This story was created from a script aired on WISH-TV. Health Spotlight is presented by Community Health Network.