What Is Causing My Clavicle Pain?
If you are experiencing a clavicle injury, you may feel pain in the upper part of your chest and shoulders, especially when moving. Other symptoms could include swelling, bruising, tenderness in the injured area, dizziness, fever, or irritation. There are many different things that could be causing you to experience this pain including clavicle fractures or breaks, acromioclavicular joint injury, infections of the clavicle, cancer, joint arthritis, sleeping in the wrong position, thoracic outlet syndrome, etc. Out of all of these injuries, a clavicle fracture or break is the most common. There are many ways to fracture or injure your collarbone such as car accidents, severe falls, or various sports injuries.
Click here to read more on these clavicle pain injuries and learn specific symptoms and treatment options for each injury.
What Can I Do for a Clavicle Injury?
A clavicle injury can be very painful and most of the time they are required just to heal on their own. There are a few things you can do to help to heal such an injury. First off, ice packs and anti-inflammatory medication can help to keep the pain and swelling down. Also, wearing a clavicle brace or sling helps to limit the movement of the injured clavicle area. It will heal in the correct position by immobilizing your arm and movement in your upper body.
There are many different styles of braces designed for men, women, and children. Finding the right clavicle splint depends on your injury. Most collarbone injuries are not healed through surgery and instead healed over time by holding the bone in place with a brace, sling, clavicle strap, or splint. Surgery may be required if the bone breaks through the skin, is broken in several places, or completely out of place.
A common concern for individuals with injured clavicles is how long it should be worn. We recommend consulting with a doctor to determine the severity of your injury and to see how long you should be wearing the brace. As a general rule of thumb, you should wear the sling at all times until there is no further pain when you are moving. Most clavicle fractures heal within 4-8 weeks.
Finding the Best Clavicle Brace for You
Figure 8 Clavicle Braces
A figure 8 clavicle brace is the best option for a clavicle injury because it has two loops that wrap around both shoulders and the neck to hold the shoulder back and up. These braces limit the mobility, twisting, and turning of the upper body. They will also hold the collarbone and back in the correct alignment by forcing the shoulders to be in a bent back position. The padded straps of these collarbone braces are fairly wide, making it a great solution for clavicle injuries and fractures. Narrower versions are not recommended for such injuries. These wide straps may feel uncomfortable at first but will give you the appropriate level of stabilization that needs to heal the injury.
Slings for an Injured Clavicle
If you don’t have a serious clavicle break or injury, but want to make sure everything heals properly, a clavicle sling is a great solution. It will help limit the movement of the upper body and shoulder. Collarbone slings are usually suggested by a physician after either having surgery or for general therapy. The degree of injury will factor in on which clavicle sling to choose. Another alternative to the figure 8 brace is a cuff sling, which will wrap around your wrist. This is a great product to transition down to when the healing begins to take place. Clavicle slings only keep one side immobilized compared to the figure 8 braces keeping both sides stabilized. You also have the mobility of your hands when wearing a figure 8 brace vs. a sling.
Clavicle Brace and Posture Support
These clavicle braces not only help with a collarbone injury, but they also help to correct your posture by pulling your shoulders back into a proper position. Figure 8 Braces will pull your shoulders backward and help correct the alignment with your back. Posture is extremely important when needing to heal a collarbone injury. Posture braces can help limit the side effects of poor posture such as:
- Negative physical appearance
- Headaches
- Back, neck or shoulder pain
- Fatigue
If you are looking specifically for a posture corrector brace, check out this posture corrector brace. It is designed more specifically to act as a posture trainer rather than a clavicle brace. Wearing a brace that loops around the shoulders and crosses at the back can help you to maintain good posture. It does so by retraining the muscles of the back to hold it in an upright, non-slouched position.
Pediatric Clavicle Supports
In order to help kids with poor posture, a pediatric posture brace is a perfect solution. Even better, this brace can double as either a collarbone brace or children’s posture brace. If your child has injured their collarbone, we recommend this kid's clavicle brace. This figure 8 brace has Velcro closures that cannot be undone by the child so it ensures they keep the support on and their clavicle stays immobilized. This broken clavicle treatment brace comes in a wide range of sizes for babies, toddlers, children, and youth.