Car Accident Pain Solutions

During the rainy season, more car accidents occur and therefore there are more patients in need of some medical attention. This is expected by medical professionals as car accidents increase generally during the rainy season because of lesser road traction as well as poor visibility. In many cases, these accidents occur with one car waiting for the red light to turn green or it is stuck in traffic and an oncoming car from behind fails to come to a halt in time and rear-ends another vehicle.

During these type of accidents, the one that gets more soft tissue injuries are the passengers and driver from the struck car. This is because they are not aware of what’s happening so their bodies are relaxed while the driver and passengers of the car that’s about to hit them are aware and sees what’s coming and so their bodies are bracing itself in preparation for the upcoming car collision.

During a collision, the torso of the victim accelerates on the same speed as that of the car that hit them. If at low-speed, around 15 mph, their torso accelerates also at 15 mph. But the head lags a bit due to the neck which acts like a spring. When the torso accelerates, the neck arcs backwards then builds up energy and, just like a spring, would throw that energy forward for the head to go to the same direction as the torso. This is called over-correction when the neck loads on the opposite direction and release. This leads to microtears along the surrounding muscles around the neck, at the back of the head, on the upper shoulders as well as upper back and mid back. When this gets extreme, the lower back can also get affected.

These soft tissue injuries can benefit from chiropractic care. The protocol for such injuries involves 2 important phases: 1) pain reduction, 2) restoration of function. Pain reduction can take around 4 to 12 sessions depending on the case of the patient. Some chiropractors also recommend fish oil supplements to decrease the inflammation because of its EPA content that is known to be a natural inflammation inhibitor.

For the 2^nd phase, spinal adjustments, physical therapy modalities, massage and exercises are performed so the movement can be restored back. Alignment of the vertebrae is also being restored through spinal adjustments. Before going to phase 2, pain must already be at the minimum if not completely eliminated in order to optimize the restoration of the flexibility and movement so that any future chronic problems would be prevented.

Patients are most often happy with the result of their chiropractic treatment. They feel better than before they even had the accident. If you are curious about this, feel free to contact a chiropractor and learn more about their available treatments for car accident injuries and whiplash.