Help Janice Have Surgery to Fix Her Rib Condition

For the past 2 years, Janice has been living in constant pain from a condition called Slipping Rib Syndrome. There is a new procedure to treat this condition which is less invasive, however there is only one surgeon in New Zealand that has started using this procedure, and he is based in Hamilton. As Janice doesn’t live in the Waikato, this surgeon cannot operate on Janice under the public system. We are raising money to help her pay for the surgery at the private hospital in Hamilton where the surgeon works.

What is Slipping Rib Syndrome?

Slipping Rib Syndrome is a condition where some of the ribs have broken away from the cartilage they are normally attached to, at the front of the ribcage. With just normal everyday movements, these ribs now slip under each other and sometimes get jammed, causing inflammation and nerve pain. You can often feel the ribs clicking in and out. Sitting up and doing anything that involves leaning forward, pushing, reaching, bending or twisting causes them to move and hurt a lot more. The pain gets progressively worse as the day goes on, with the more movement you do. Just doing the dishes makes her ribs ache. Doing 20 minutes of gardening or vacuuming can make them sore for a week! By the afternoon, most days Janice’s ribs ache so much that she usually has to lay down with a heat pack. It is also starting to cause other aches and pains, due to the way she has to hold herself now. She has tried many different types of pain medication, but they have been either ineffective, or caused awful side effects.

How is it affecting her life?

This condition has a huge impact on Janice’s quality of life, activities, work, relationships and her mental health. She doesn’t feel like she can be the mum/daughter/sister/friend that she wants to be, or has been in the past. Janice has also had a tough few years financially, after going through a marriage separation, and seeing her travel broker business completely stalled due to Covid-19. During this time she has done a lot of work uncompensated, in order to obtain refunds and credits for her customers.

How to fix Slipping Rib Syndrome?

Until now, the standard procedure to fix this condition is to remove the affected cartilage, and parts of the ribs. However, this removes the protection those ribs give to some internal organs, and it has caused long term complications for a lot of people. A new less invasive technique has been developed, which stabilises the rib cage, and bypasses the nerves so they don’t become trapped. This surgery has been done successfully many times in the USA, and has started to be done by a few surgeons around the world. We now have a surgeon in New Zealand who has successfully used this technique a number of times.

This condition has been so debilitating, and we would like to help Janice gain her quality of life back. The sooner she can have the surgery, the sooner she can recover and start to do all those normal everyday things without pain hindering her. Any amount of money raised will help towards the costs of having this surgery done in Hamilton at the end of March . The cost of the surgery has been estimated at $23,000-$28,000.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and please share this page far and wide!

We would love to raise more awareness about the condition Slipping Rib Syndrome. If you would like to know more, please take a look at the webinar and/or paper below, which explain the condition, and the new surgical stabilising technique.

Webinar by Dr Hansen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZDFe3fC6ck&t=4s&ab_channel=AdamHansen

Main Paper by Dr Hansen: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11wyQdxHmVrrDE8KHttalS26lVpaF_3jR/view?usp=sharing