So, you were at a stoplight and someone else wasn’t paying attention. Or maybe you hit that ONE patch of ice that was holding on in the shade. Whether you are at fault or not, in Oregon, car insurance policies cover driver and passenger injuries. That’s the first bit of good news.
The bad news is that it doesn’t take much of an impact to leave an impact on you. One study found that only 3mph of collision speed is needed to cause whiplash. That could be as easy as backing into a tall curb. Whiplash can then leave you with chronic neck pain and headaches or worse. Even so, Chiropractic therapies are found to be effective at reducing the symptoms of whiplash while joints heal.
Another piece of good news is that since we deal with this sort of injury so often, chiropractors are well versed in when and what to do about car accident injuries. For example, after a whiplash injury, most people would think that a massage right away would do them a world of good. The truth is that the rigidity in the muscle that comes with a neck injury like that is necessary for healing. Whiplash means that ligaments have been stretched or torn and the muscles are directed by your nervous system to lock down the joint so that the ligament can knit itself back together properly. So we always give the ligament at least 2 weeks to start healing before we try to make the muscles relax. Otherwise, you could be left with an unstable joint and more chronic issues in the future.
It’s the little things that we don’t notice at first after a shocking injury that can stay with us a long time. In my time working on MVAs I have learned to look for some common things that are easy to gloss over. Many times a driver who was rear-ended can come away with a sprain to the right ankle. It stands to reason that when you have your foot on the brake and are then thrown forward into that ankle, it can get jammed. Making sure we work on that sprain will lead to less limping and therefore complications to any low back injury that may have occurred.
If you or someone you know has been in a car accident, please reach out to us and get everything checked out. The lack of initial pain isn’t a good indicator of injury when we are going through even minor shock and a simple assessment can lead to fewer issues in the future.