Head and neck injuries can be painful and debilitating. These are common injuries that happen during automobile accidents. The cause of the injuries is typically whiplash, and prompt and experienced chiropractic care can help car accident victims regain their pre-accident event health.

How Whiplash Can Cause Head and Neck Injuries in a Car Crash

Whiplash occurs when the body is jerked aggressively in a back-and-forth motion.
The extent of the injuries will depend on how much force the car accident caused among other factors. The head and neck are most often the body areas that take the brunt of the forceful impact. However, there can be spinal and back injuries along with soft tissue damage as well.

Symptoms of Whiplash May Not Be Evident Immediately After an Accident

At first, the accident victim may not even realize that they suffered a whiplash event. It is common for the symptoms to appear mild at first. Later, after a few hours or even days have passed, the telltale symptoms of whiplash may appear.

Untreated whiplash can become worse or chronic over time. Since this forceful impact can push the spine and nearby body structures out of alignment, pain, stiffness and other problems may arise.

How Chiropractic Care Can Treat Whiplash & Other Symptoms Directly

Chiropractors offer a unique way to treat whiplash. These healthcare professionals attempt to pinpoint the exact area that suffered the greatest impact. Then they next determine which spine, back or neck-related chiropractic adjustments will best work towards returning the body to a natural alignment thereby reducing and hopefully resolving any lingering symptoms.

These symptoms include pain, stiffness of neck or back and swelling that can impede those smaller soft tissue structures including nerves, ligaments and tendons. Relieving the swelling and inflammation can directly reduce the pressure exerted on the tender soft tissue embedded smaller entities like a pinched nerve or a pulled tendon.

There Are Other Whiplash Related Symptoms to Watch for Like Visual Disturbances and Nausea

In some cases, a victim experiencing signs and symptoms of whiplash may develop seemingly unrelated symptoms like changes in their visual status or nausea for unknown reasons. Some victims of whiplash will also complain of headaches, stiff neck or back and lack of movement in these areas. Report these symptoms to your doctor.

Car Accidents Can Result in Serious Head Trauma

Head traumas due to car accidents are unfortunately common. In milder cases, patients may develop a headache in the initial after event stages. This headache may be due to the impact force that puts stress on the neck, spine and back. The inflammation from that forceful impact is usually the cause of this type of headache.

Frequent Headaches Post Accident Could Be Due to Muscle Tension or Misalignment of Spine

Others will begin to notice off and on-again headaches that become more frequent over time. This is often a result of muscle related tension from the severe stress of having been involved in such a frightening accident and due to the ongoing muscle tension felt when the spine is out of alignment. These head and muscle aches may worsen with movement or after being awake and about for several hours.

Seek Emergency Treatment for Severe Headaches that Coincide with Nausea or Altered Mental Status

If the headaches worsen considerably, or if the headaches coincide with nausea, vomiting and mental focus changes, contact your healthcare provider or seek emergency medical treatment right away. In some cases, head trauma could have caused an underlying brain injury that can be life-threatening if not promptly diagnosed and/or treated.

Understanding How Car Accidents Can Cause Various Back Injuries

The spine that runs along your back contains multiple discs that have cushioning layers inside that help to protect the spine from a forceful impact such as one caused by a motor vehicle accident that results in whiplash. During the impact, those fragile discs can become damaged.

Whiplash May Cause Spinal Disc Injuries & Damage

This disc damage occurs when the disc takes the brunt of the forceful impact, and the resulting symptoms can include back/neck pain, discomfort when moving the spine or other related symptoms. Whiplash can result in herniated spinal discs, pinched nerves or pressure/stiffness related to impact area inflammation.

Some Whiplash Symptoms May Seem Unconnected to the Untrained Eye

Some accident victims that suffer whiplash report a loss of sensation at the impact point or in seemingly unrelated farther away areas like the hands or feet for instance. Others will be unable to move much due to pain or stiffness that could have an underlying cause related to damaged discs.

Chiropractic Treatment Is Recommended for Back Related Disc Injuries

Many individuals that suffer from a herniated disc, pinched nerve pain or other whiplash symptoms that impact the back may be helped immensely with proper and experienced chiropractic treatments and therapies.

Always Be on the Lookout for Soft Tissue Injuries Following a Car Wreck

The head, neck, back and other body areas contain lots of soft tissue areas. These tissues tend to hold core structures that can sense pain and help the body during motion and other body system functions.

Whiplash Can Cause Intense Soft Tissue Damage

When these soft tissues get banged around during a forceful accident, like a motor vehicle accidental event, the results can be exceptionally painful and victims might notice increased stiffness, aches deep within the muscles or bones and sometimes lack of movement.

Those symptoms tend to occur due to whiplash-related inflammation within these tissues, and the soft tissues may become damaged, stretched, torn or otherwise injured.

These soft tissue injuries may not appear right away, so always get a thorough exam after any motor vehicle accident. Many of these injuries are aided substantially with professional chiropractic care and treatments.

Car accidents can result in whiplash injuries impacting the head, neck, back, spine and soft tissues. Always seek emergency medical treatment and consider undergoing chiropractic treatment to properly realign your body’s musculoskeletal system and hopefully decrease whiplash-related inflammation, discomfort and other unwanted symptoms.

Schedule a consultation appointment with Dr. Wilhelm Eckroth from Structural Chiropractic by calling (425) 636-0303 or visiting online.