Car Crash? Whiplash? Dash to the Chiropractor Fast!

Do you have tissue issues and spinal subluxations following a car or motorcycle accident? You’re not alone. According to the American Academic of Orthopedic Surgeons, 15 to 40 percent of car crash victims will struggle with chronic pain for the rest of their lives. A major culprit: whiplash, a condition in which a forceful back-and-forth movement injures the neck.

Whiplash is not a new injury. For many years during the railroad boom, the neck and back pain resulting from railroad crashes was colloquially referred to as “railroad spine.” Though rare at the time, whiplash has become a common cause of chronic pain, as people rely on (fast) automobile transport more than ever before. The faster the crash, the more severe the whiplash.

Do you really need help?

Maybe you were only involved in a fender-bender. Maybe you have never been diagnosed with whiplash, but you still feel a little banged up months or years after the accident. Even if you were never formally diagnosed with whiplash, you may have suffered spinal trauma. At low speeds of ten to fifteen miles per hour, spinal damage can occur.

And whiplash doesn’t just go away. In the longest-running study on whiplash, over half of people diagnosed with whiplash struggled with chronic pain nearly twenty years after initial diagnosis. If not corrected, whiplash can disparage your quality of life.

Beyond the Spine

Spinal misalignment is not the only carryover from a car accident. You may be weighed down by tight muscles and anxiety. After reading the previous two posts, it may not surprise you that these accident-related problems are interconnected.

Your emotions and body positioning at the time of the accident matter. Maybe you had your head tilted talking on the phone when you got into the accident. Maybe you were stressed and tense. Even if you don’t remember what you were doing or how you were feeling, your body does. And until you address this trauma with chiropractic care, you will carry the emotions and the pain with you into the future. The traumatic memory of an accident is seared into your mind and body.

According to Psychopharmacologist Candice Perts, our tissues are storage receptacles for emotion. A misaligned spine and car-crash terror traumatize our tissues. We each have a little-known, thin web of connective tissue that runs from our head to our toes, holding everything in place. This fascia is why we have shape, form, and bodily integrity. When it is healthy, fascia is strong, supple, and hydrated. But car-crash trauma makes it weak, brittle, and dry. In this unhealthy state, it all too easily coils and knots—the painful, obvious indicator of tissue trauma.

If your muscles are tight and your mind is unsettled following an accident, you have tissue issues! Aligning your spine with chiropractic care will jumpstart muscle relaxation, putting you on the path to recovery.

Finding Relief

No conventional treatment is proven effective in the treatment of whiplash. Because the medical community has an incomplete understanding of whiplash-related chronic pain, some doctors prescribe symptom-masking, addictive pain pills. But the frustrating reality is that these provide no long-term remission from the pain. Each year Americans spend around $5.2 billion dollars on whiplash treatment methods, many of which are ineffective.

Chiropractic care and movement-based therapies are evidence-supported, long-term solutions for whiplash because they get to the root of the problem: spinal misalignment and limited range of motion. In one remarkable but small-scale study, 93 percent of patients who had been diagnosed with whiplash improved following chiropractic care. How’s that for effective?

If you or a loved one is still suffering from the devastating effects of a car or motorcycle accident, dash to the chiropractor fast!