With more than 3 million road users sustaining injuries during a car accident and being disabled each year, car crashes are one of the most common ways to hurt yourself in the United States. Not only is a car wreck a traumatizing experience for the victim, recovering from car accident-related injuries is a challenge in itself.
How serious your injuries are will to some extent depend on how high or low impact the collision was, but assuming that a low-impact collision does not result in injuries is absolutely incorrect. Whiplash is one of the most common car accident injuries that can be sustained even during a low-impact collision.
What Is Whiplash?
Whiplash is caused when during a crash your head is violently thrown forward, backward, or sideways. This sudden jerk can cause the tendons and muscles of your neck to get strained and damaged resulting in immense pain and sometimes even leading to life-altering changes.
The nature of a whiplash is such that the injury is usually not apparent immediately after a car crash. The symptoms of a whiplash can take days or even weeks to reveal themselves after a car accident. To rule out the presence of a whiplash after a wreck it is best to get yourself to a car accident clinic near you for a complete medical check-up. Any delay in treatment of a whiplash can cause immense pain and also worsen the injury.
Symptoms Of Whiplash
Since symptoms of whiplash are usually delayed, many car accident victims postpone going to a car accident chiropractor for an injury evaluation. Sometimes symptoms may show up but most crash victims associate them with other problems or injuries. These symptoms include:
- Neck pain
- Stiffness and soreness
- Limited range of motion in the neck
- Headaches
- Soreness in the shoulders, arms, upper back, and even the upper chest
- Dizziness
- Nausea
- Fatigue
- Blurred vision
- Tinnitus
- Difficulty sleeping
A prudent step after being involved in a car wreck is to first seek an appointment with a car accident chiropractor. Whiplash is one of the most commonly treated car accident injuries under chiropractic care. This is because chiropractors are experts at diagnosing and treating car accident-related trauma, especially whiplash.
Treating Whiplash, The Chiropractic Way
After being involved in a car accident, do not wait it out. This delay will not only worsen your injuries but also hurt your injury claim. Assuming that the nagging pain in your neck or upper back will go away on its own is the biggest mistake you can make after being injured in a car accident.
Whiplash damages the soft tissues of your neck and sometimes the upper back too. Seeking prompt treatment can prevent it from turning chronic and resulting in unbearable pain.
Let’s explore the various treatment options you have for whiplash.
Spinal Manipulation: Your spine runs from the base of your skull all the way down to your tailbone. A healthy spine with proper alignment is better able to support your body and keep it erect. Chiropractors use spinal adjustment and manipulation technique to apply gradual pressure on your spine. This is done to realign your injured spine and restore movement to it.
Cervical Spine Traction and Manipulation: When you sustain a whiplash, it is the cervical spine that gets injured along with the soft tissues. Many times the intervertebral disc may pop out from its original position and pinch nerves to cause pain. Also at times the cervical spine loses its alignment. To treat such injuries chiropractors resort to cervical spine manipulation and traction. To align the spine to its original shape, spinal manipulation is used. To stretch out the space between the vertebrae, chiropractors used the technique of spinal traction. The device gently stretches the neck muscles in the cervical spine to space out the discs and joint surfaces.
Electric Muscle Stimulation: Another non-invasive chiropractic technique that uses low-frequency electrical currents that stimulate your neck muscles. What the electric current does is reignite the ability of the muscle to contract. Such a type of therapy helps alleviate pain, reduce inflammation, and even strengthens your neck muscles.
Soft Tissue Massage Therapy: Whiplash can cause your neck muscles to become tense. Therapeutic massage therapy helps relax them. Massage also boosts blood circulation to the site of injury and thus promotes healing. Additionally, massage also helps relieve mental and emotional stress too.
Stretches And Exercises: Rehabilitative exercises and easy stretches help immensely at the time of recovery. Some chiropractors will stretch your joints manually while some may show you how to do them from the comfort of your home. Stretches and exercises improve range of motion, alleviate pain and stiffness, and make your recovery faster and better.
Why Chiropractic for whiplash
Natural & Holistic: Traditional medicine depends on medications and invasive procedures to treat and cure. Chiropractic care is drug-free and surgery-free. No medications are prescribed and no surgical procedures are carried out to treat any of your car accident injuries. Only natural and holistic care is offered as treatment.
Safe: Chiropractors understand your spine is a sensitive part of your body. Spinal manipulations and adjustments are done in a safe manner so there is very little risk of any side effects or further injury. Chiropractic care is the safest medical options out there in the injury treatment market.
Treats the cause: Most medical treatment options focus on the results of an injury while chiropractic care looks at the cause. It addresses the issue at its root instead of offering topical treatment options. You may need to at first go for frequent chiropractic sessions but the results you will get will be long lasting and holistic.
Customized treatment provided by your chiropractor aids your body to heal and recover naturally. To schedule a consultation at a car accident clinic near you or anywhere in Florida and speak to our chiropractic experts for a tailored treatment plan for your whiplash injury.
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