Rib injury from... A JAB??

[Boxy]

Dude i need to ask you a few questions, depending on your answers you'll figure out what you have.

but please don't continue taking painkillers for such a prolonged period of time without consulting a Dr, three weeks is a lot of time on acamol (parasetamal) ibu is a hell of alot heavier on your liver.

1) after getting hit did you notice a bruise of any kind?
2) are you having difficulty taking in deep breaths, cough, sneezing (any form of pain during those?)
3) while touching the area do you feel it's any diffrent from the other side of your body (discount if you have any old injury in either area)
4) can you take a good breath with your arms held over your head.
5) does it hurt while you're doing dips?

if you've answeared positive to one or more of these questions you've probably got cracked or possibly even broken ribs, you mentioned you've been having this pain for three weeks, so I do believe it is time to go get a chest X-ray, two angels at the very least at the very least go get checked out by a Dr whom can give you a diffinitive answer after an exmination, (it beats being question by a guy a thousand miles away over the internet).

Your old age migh make you more prone to being hurt and take longer to heal but other than that nothing

as a side note it's very possible to get hurt from any blow given to you, be it a jab, an uppercut or a knee.
even if the man whom punched you was two thirds your size he could still transfer enough enrgy to crack a rib with ease.
the guy who broke my ribs did it with a knee to the chest, and it only hurt a bit at the time but the next morning i needed help getting up out of bed and he was only 170 pounds (I'm somewhere around 120-130).

the writer of this post is an expeirinced medic on active duty.

[Gray Lion]

Darn right you can have an injury to the rib from a jab. We had it happen just a few weeks ago to one of our pro fighters who was letting an older teen do some sparring with him. The pro admitted he was being laid back, getting lazy and not paying attention when the kid landed a jab to his side and actually fractured two ribs. The freaky thing was this kid had no punching power ...but for that one time, he actually got the balance, the shift, and put the proper weight into a proper punch. It happened so fast, we thought the pro was kidding about being hurt.

Once we had another pro fighter playing around with a 14 year old and got into that "Rocky" stupidity of taking his hands down and letting the kid hit him in the face saying "that don't hurt at all" and "is that all you got". Then the kid connected jurt right with his chin and actually knocked him out. Now the fighter has to endure the ribbing of being punched out by a kid.

Lesson learned: Freaky things can happen.