If you have been in an auto accident, chiropractic care can be an important part of your recovery process. While hospital emergency staff or your family physician may be able to treat broken bones or other injuries, you may have sustained misalignments of the spine, pinched nerves, or damage to the soft tissues of your back, which only a chiropractor can diagnose and treat. If you're suffering from whiplash or other injuries after a car accident, Chiropractic of Bellevue can help to ease your pain and get you on the road to recovery.
Your car got bumped by another car, and now something is clearly wrong. Maybe your neck is stiff and sore, maybe you are experiencing recurring headaches, or maybe your hands feel strangely tingly. These and many other symptoms could be signs of a debilitating neck injury known as whiplash.
What Whiplash Does to Your Neck
Whiplash gets its name from the sharp, damaging action that occurs when your car and body come to a sudden halt but your head keeps moving due to momentum. The initial bump from the collision may actually throw the head backward, after which it is thrown violently forward in a rebound action. These two actions create both hyper-flexion (forward) and hyper-extension (backward) in the neck and that is how the damage takes place. The forces exerted on your cervical spine can problems of alignment in the spinal bones due to ligament tears and allow discs to shift or “slip”. These problematic discs can pinch nerve roots. At the same time, your neck muscles, tendons, or ligaments can seriously strain or torn. It is no wonder then, that whiplash can create a wide variety of symptoms.
Signs of Whiplash
It is worth noting that you might not experience any neck trouble at all in the immediate aftermath of your car accident. The shock of the event can get adrenaline flowing and delay symptoms even though an injury is actually present. By the time symptoms finally occur, you might not even connect them with your accident.
We typically see patients suffering from:
Neck Pain and Stiffness
You may have trouble moving your head backward/forward or turning it to either side.
Muscle Spasms
Your neck muscles may seem unusually clenched or tight.
Headaches
Neck muscle spasms caused by pinched nerves often produce headache pain.
Pain, Numbness, Muscle Weakness or Tingling Sensations in Hands and Arms
When these symptoms are caused by pinched cervical nerves from a herniated or bulging discs, the condition is called cervical radiculopathy.
Sensory Problems
Nerve impingement from whiplash may cause such oddities as ringing in the ears, vision problems, dizziness, trouble concentrating and mood disorders.
Whiplash Treatment at Chiropractor of Bellevue
Now that you know the signs of whiplash, contact us to set up an evaluation at Chiropractic of Bellevue. Dr. Owens will discuss your symptoms with you and perform careful diagnostic checks to determine exactly what has been damaged. He can then administer the right mix of whiplash treatment options to free you from those symptoms and help you heal.