Can a Chiropractor Help You Deal with Whiplash Injury?
Here is everything your chiropractor can do for a whiplash injury and why it’s essential to get whiplash injury treated.
Whiplash is one of the injuries that happen to be following a traumatic incident like accidents or falls. Although it is a common injury, the pain does affect the person dealing with it for a long time. The injury occurs to the neck muscles, as the head moves rapidly backward or forward and then speedily “whipped” in the opposite direction.
Whiplash injury can cause short-term or even acute neck pain, restricting your movement. The ligament muscles in your neck go beyond the normal motion range, which causes discomfort.
Since the injury is commonplace, many people think it is simply something to expect and not be bothered about. They fail to seek medical attention or proper treatment for the pain.
You need to obtain adequate and accessible treatment for whiplash injury so the pain doesn’t worsen. But the question here lies, how can a chiropractor resolve your health concerns?
Because each individual goes through different types of a whiplash injury, it is not possible to generalize chiropractic treatment. However, the help of these professionals and their unique treatment will detect the primary dysfunctions. Accordingly, chiropractors will employ different techniques, adjustments for your injury.
While it commonly arises post car accidents, people also get whiplash from sports, park rides, or sudden falls. Don’t you wish to live a normal, stress-free, and pain-free life? If yes, you need to consult a professional right away.
Wondering what a professional chiropractor can do for you?
After an accident, you deserve to live a normal life and do normal activities. This article will speak about the benefit, different techniques, and recovery process. Let us see how these professionals will make a difference in your life through their help.
Common symptoms of Whiplash Injury
- Neck stiffness and pain
- Pain in the arms, upper back, and shoulders
- Blurred vision
- Headaches, particularly the back of the head
- Challenges in concentrating
- Extreme fatigue
- Vertigo or dizziness
Some people also face neck injury symptoms like:
- Ringing in the ears (tinnitus)
- Sleep disturbances
- Irritability
- Difficulty concentrating
- Memory problems
- Depression
Four most common causes of Whiplash injury
The injury typically occurs when your head is forced or quickly thrown backward and then forwards.
This sudden motion causes strain in the head, leading to the injury of bones in the spine. It also affects the disks between the bones, muscles, nerves and ligaments, and other tissues.
- Auto accidents: Rear end collision is the most common cause of the whiplash
- Physical abuse: Whiplash injury can occur when you are punched or shaken
- Assault: Any kind of assault that affects your head can lead to injuries
- Sports: Football and other related sports can sometimes cause you to whiplash
Let us talk about auto accident cases and how severe whiplash can occur from them. Of course, there are various ways you can resolve your pain and damage. But, for that, you need to have patience! Trust the process of chiropractic adjustments and let them have a physical examination done on you.
The complication of Whiplash Injury
Most people suffering from whiplash injury get better within a few weeks. They don’t seem to see the seriousness of the injury or any lasting effects of it. Some people continue to experience pain that lasts for weeks to months and even years. Visit injuredcare.com to know more about whiplash injury.
It is, however, pretty intimidating to understand how long the injury will last as each case differs.
In general, you may be likely to have chronic pain as your first symptoms. While some may feel acute pain, that goes intense in a few months. People go through severe problems like:
- Severe neck pain
- More-limited range of motion
- Pain that spread to the arms
Chiropractors Can Treat Whiplash Injury | The Benefits
Through chiropractic treatment and care, your spine can get realigned, and it will also prevent the worsening of the symptoms. Furthermore, there are other spinal decompression techniques, relieving pressure on the cervical spine and the discs.
In spinal decompression, gentle stretching releases the vertebra of your spine. The stretches will require a certain force to the nerves in your spine for quick neck and back pain recovery.
Let us discuss some additional benefits and advantages of chiropractors. Here is how whiplash injury will be gone in no time.
- Reduce Pain & Inflammation
Often, after a whiplash injury, you might be recommended medications, but those are painkillers. The treatment can offer you not just rapid but long-term relief from inflammation. It will only eliminate the feeling of pain, not treating your injuries.
So, adjustments and techniques will reduce inflammation and pain in the soft tissues of your neck. Plus, you can even reduce your need to take pain killers and medication entirely since you rely more on physical healing through regular chiropractic treatments.
- Restore your Motion
No one likes to lie down and sit long enough. A restrictive movement or bed rest sounds discomforting to you and is the last option. All are always busy with work, responsibility, be it work life or education.
But with whiplash injury, you are going through discomfort in your neck, causing you bed rest. Manual chiropractic adjustments of your neck focus on treating the range of motion. You can focus on restoring the full range of motion of your neck through these adjustments.
So for being physically fit and pain-free, these chiropractic care and adjustments will work wonders for you.
- Improve Muscle Tone
After a whiplash injury, you might feel the muscle tone and stretch in your neck are no longer the same. You feel you’ve lost the strength and can no longer control your neck movement.
It is why you feel difficulty going about your usual activity, doing your daily chores, etc. Regular chiropractic care and adjustments will be able to keep your spine functioning. It will help realign your spine in the right position and its structures to be strong and healthy.
- Treating Headaches
When an accident occurs or slips and falls, there is a strain causing discomfort on the neck muscles. It further increases your risk of dealing with recurrent headaches. Imagine you are already going through a whiplash injury with neck pain.
The last thing you want is a constant headache that doesn’t let you sleep or focus on your daily activities. Chiropractic adjustments will significantly reduce tension in your muscles.
It is a natural way of healing your headache because you work on your overall injuries. A regular visit to chiropractic care will reduce headaches and pain complications.
Here is everything to know about whiplash injury on injuredcare.com
- Speeding up Recovery Process
After an accident or any other type of personal injury occurs to you. You may feel an ongoing discomfort in your body, and it affects you for weeks to months.
When you seek help from a chiropractor, they perform adjustments and other manipulation techniques soon after your trauma. It is an attempt to speed up your recovery process and reduce the risks associated with the accident.
You might have trouble if you delay, which can cause a serious complication that will take longer to heal than usual. Therefore, you can expect to get to your usual routine with increased blood flow and renewed energy. It will happen in a much faster way and with lesser pain
- Boost your Wellness experience
A chiropractic adjustment will not only help in supporting your spine and neck health. It will offer you additional benefits too for your general health and well-being. Spinal adjustments can enhance your blood flow throughout your body.
Furthermore, it will provide you with increased energy that will give you mental stability and clarity. Post-accident, you need to have balanced mental health to make the appropriate decisions.
With the routine checkup and appointment with this specialist, you are one step closer to bettering your health.
Whiplash Injury & Chiropractic Care
SPINAL MANIPULATION:
It is one of the most effective chiropractic adjustments. Spinal manipulations identify the neck joints that are misaligned and work on aligning them to the proper place.
It can get done through gentle movement of the affected joint in the right direction. In some cases, a swift but gentle thrust force will get applied in the desired direction. It will give you sudden pain in the neck that lasts for hardly a few seconds.
The whiplash injury could also aggravate a herniated or bulging disc, which is more troublesome. Therefore, chiropractors will use the flexion-distraction technique in such cases, which works wonders for your situation.
Trigger Point Therapy:
It goes by the name; it is a therapy that works specifically on the trigger point. Chiropractors can easily identify spinal joints that are limited or show some abnormal motion.
They will also work on restoring joint motion with a gentle thrusting technique. This technique works wonderfully to stretch body tissues and stimulate the nervous system for the spine to work in motion.
In your body, post the accident, tight hypertonic, painful muscle points occur. These chiropractors will be able to identify these points by placing direct pressure through finger touch. It will alleviate muscle tension to a reasonable extent.
Muscle stimulations
Professional chiropractors use primary whiplash treatment, especially for muscle dysfunction is muscle stimulation, and/or relaxation. In this, they will do gentle stretching to the muscles that are majorly dealing with excessive tension.
If the muscles are too tight, it is a problematic concern, which is one of the reasons why you are going through a lot of pain. The chiropractor applies a more vigorous stretch and force to get rid of the muscle tension.
Further, the chiropractor will apply gentle finger pressure techniques on the affected area to ease the pain related to tight muscles.
Interferential electrical stimulation
Most of the chiropractic treatments work through the hand, but there are other alternatives too. One widespread but effective technique they use is through an interferential electrical stimulation device.
Plus, the best part is the device gives a painless experience. Through a low-frequency current, it further stimulates the injured neck muscles. Overall, the device can reduce or lower pain and inflammation caused by whiplash injury.
After all, the primary and only aim of chiropractic treatment is to feel no pain at all. Plus, if the injury is severe, these professionals can also employ therapeutic ultrasound to increase blood circulation and offer various advantages.
Few other benefit is to reduce muscle spasms and neck stiffness. Chiropractors will benefit from this by sending sound waves that create gentle heat overall encouraging muscle relaxation. Visit injured care to learn about whiplash injury.
Soft tissue therapies:
For your whiplash injury, soft tissue therapy is the best and most effective approach. Especially in whiplash, it affects your soft tissues and creates unwanted trouble. In this therapy, the treatment plan is to restore proper muscle functioning.
It is done by applying a little pressure and also stretching muscles that are going through tension. The massage you get is one common soft tissue therapy; it is extremely beneficial to relieve muscle tension.
Also, further depending upon the injury, your chiropractor can include muscle energy therapy with it. Both of which will show wonderful results as they are the best stretch-and-resist techniques.
Instrument-assisted therapy:
One popular non-thrusting method that chiropractors often use. It is a kind of hand-held device through which you can apply force without trusting your spine.
The common Graston technique, an instrument-assisted technique, works to treat the injured soft tissues. You can understand that your whiplash injury brings many soft tissue injuries along with it.
It means that instrument-assisted therapy will help focus on treating tissue injuries specifically. And, the professional will perform gentle but repeated strokes using the instrument over the injured area.
Exercise
Stretching and moving exercises are also the best you can do. Plus, chiropractors usually recommend you to do so at home or anytime you feel you can. Stretching exercises will gradually restore your range of motion. These are gentle and well-controlled, not going to affect your whiplash injury more.
- You can rotate your neck in both the direction
- Tilt your head side to side
- Bend your neck towards your chest and
- Roll your shoulders.
If you do so regularly, every day, you will feel a difference. The problem will not just reduce, but the pain will fade away too in no time. But, you have to practice it well at home only then you will see the difference.
Also, don’t do any exercise before seeking advice from a chiropractor. You want to resume your normal activities, and therefore taking advice from these professionals is essential. They will suggest to you which exercise is suitable for your situation.
Based on that, you can practice and gain maximum results out of it. Do not jeopardize your recovery by overdoing any exercises.
DIAGNOSIS FOR WHIPLASH INJURY
When you make an appointment with a chiropractor, you will first have to share your location and the type of pain you are experiencing. However, it doesn’t mean they will be able to treat your injuries right away and give you medical help.
First, they would want to evaluate your exact condition and whiplash injury. Chiropractors will operate based on the understanding of the human body and with their traditional medicine knowledge.
The chiropractor will focus on not just the damaged part but the overall spine health. They will further determine your spine functioning, dysfunction, along with the issues and complaints you have. It will get done through proper physical examination, a look for detail such as injury, tension, mobility, and other areas.
Once the examination gets completed, your chiropractors will have a good idea to reduce the pain. They know where the problem lies; they know how to fix it. For a better quality of life, their chiropractic adjustments will help you heal better.
With that, additional diagnostic tools provide you with the best treatment plan. They can suggest MRI scans, CT scans, and even X-rays to understand your injuries.
Seek advice from professionals!
If you would like to seek chiropractic care for your whiplash injury, you can visit Injured Care. Seeking adjustments and manipulation techniques post an accident will put you in a favorable situation.
With that, these professionals want to help you with the services genuinely. They aim to give you quality support and care based on the injury you are going through. At Injured Care, you can gain access to the best professionals near you.
Do your research and locate from the directory a reliable chiropractor who is ready to help you. Get in touch with them, discuss your problems and start healing at the earliest.
