so sorry about rib muscles. I can tell you i have had trouble with lots of muscles that won't loosen no matter how much i stretch them or have them massaged. with my body and the pressure on the spinal and cervical nerves the pain tightness just wont go away. of course "normal" would be no tightness. if it hasn't eased in such i long time i wonder if it ever will. but best to check with your dr. you and i are both in the same boat. feel free to pm me on this muscle tightness problem.
best...pete

Hi, I can tell you the only way i found relief from muscles that don't want to budge and relax which was awful and would turn into migraines and more the longer I let it go was klonopin.
I use this as needed not every day. but when i feel it sneaking up on me or wake up feeling it I don't hesitate.
For me my tightness would start in one area and move its way down or up.

This is just my experience.
In my situation Stress is something I have to do all I can to avoid because I live with the symptoms of myeolopathy and M.S. many of the symptoms from these are somewhat alike. but stress,heat will make the M.S very hard to overcome.
and for me after trying several different things the klonopin was the only and almost amazing how fast and helpful for the tight muscles (what comes first I'm not sure.... stress causing tightness or tightness causing stress)(maybe both)
I hope you can find relief...soon

sending you my best....Patsy

I have cervical problems (below) , but I also have really bad tight muscles on my shoulders down to the ending of my shoulder blades. If the shoulder and below muscles get too tight it starts affecting the cervical nerves and head nerves and tortures me a lot with bad head pain. I get this one nerve pain on my head, that doesnt let go for the most part unless I take a muscle relaxer or have someone massage my shoulders. It is really terrible to wake up to or stay up with.

It seems anytime I sit down all the muscles will almost instantly tighten, even if they were loose for awhile from walking or sitting in a high back chair.

Klonopin, Soma work best...I just started neurontin and I believe it is helping with the top of the head nerve pain, but not the one that hurts me the most.

Is this normal?

I have extremely tight muscles that won't release, most likely due to Thorasic Outlet Syndrome.

My muscles are really tight too. This causes dizziness when I have turned my head too often. Massage helps me and so does chiropratical adjustments, but I need to relax...easier said than done! *lol*

i've been getting massages every two weeks for eight months now and my massage therapist can't seem to get my muscles to release. He works on me for an hour at a time and thinks that something else is going on besides the whiplash thats causing the muscles to stay so tight.he thinks i might have a herniated disc in my thoracic spine. i talked to my therapist about it and he said that its very difficult to herniate a disc in that area but he said that who knows what happened to my spine during the car accident.