Car Accident Chiropractor in Uniontown

Many people will seek out chiropractic care in Uniontown after having an auto injury.  A common auto injury, whiplash, occurs when the head and neck are whipped from back to front, similar to how a whip is cracked. The majority of car accidents are rear-end collisions with whiplash being a common result. Whiplash can also occur from other kinds of trauma, accidents, abuse, and falls.

Many people in Uniontown who have been involved in an accident don't even realize they have received a whiplash injury until weeks or months later when the problem becomes persistent and leads to other issues. If your neck has been injured in an accident or other incident, this article will help you to understand if you have a whiplash injury and how chiropractic care can help you to treat it.

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Whiplash in Uniontown

When the neck is whipped from back to front during a car accident, while playing contact sports such as football, or occasionally from an assault or other physical trauma, a number of things can happen to the spine and surrounding soft tissue. Whiplash describes the initial impact, but the results can include:

• Disc bulges and herniation
• Subluxations (misalignment of the vertebrae in the spine),
• Injured bones in the spine,
• Irritated and damaged nerves
• Pulled ligaments and muscles in the neck

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What is Lordosis?

The curve in your neck is supposed to be there. It's called a lordosis. It distributes weight equally between the two joints in the back of the neck and the disc in the front. It also provides strength and motion at the same time.

When you are in a whiplash accident the head is whipped backward
then whipped forward. The head is too heavy for the spine and the muscles are too slow to react. Your neck is at the mercy of the force of the accident. The ligaments become damaged or sprained and the muscles get strained. The sprain/strain heals with time but the spine may never go back into the normal lordotic curvature.

This is why untreated or mistreated whiplash is so problematic. When you lose the lordosis the weight of your head is no longer distributed. The weight is forced onto the disc in the front of the neck. The disc can prematurely degenerate due to compression forces. The spinal cord and nerves are stretched leaving very little tolerance for movement. Movements that would otherwise be pain-free can cause neck and arm pain, tingling, and numbness. The head is moved forward ahead of the spine and is no longer balanced. This causes chronic muscular strain, tension headaches, and neck and back pain. The only way to evaluate this is with an x-ray from a Chiropractor.

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What are the Symptoms of Whiplash?

Whiplash injuries can range from mild to very severe. Injuries tend to be more significant when your headrest is positioned too low. If the impact was quite severe or the headrest was low there is the possibility that bones are broken or tissue is damaged. It is highly recommended that you see a chiropractor and receive a thorough examination and x-rays. Even if the impact seemed mild, you may have whiplash if you are experiencing any of the following symptoms:

• Neck pain
• Shoulder, upper back, and arm pain
• Headaches
• Blurred vision
• Pain when turning the head
• Inability to move or turn the head fully
• Dizziness
• Tiredness
• Numbness or tingling in the arms, hands, and fingers
• Ringing in the ears
• Difficulty sleeping
• Depression

As you can see there is a wide range of symptoms and not all of them may be immediately traceable to whiplash. Even if you have been cleared by a doctor, your pain could still be related to whiplash and you may need treatment to correct the problem. If you have recently been injured it's important to get your spine checked as soon as possible. The sooner that you start treating the issue the less chance you have of it developing into a long-term problem.

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Chiropractic Care for Car accidents

The way this must be fixed is with Chiropractic adjustments and exercises to restore the lordosis. Depending on the severity of the injury it may take months or years to restore it. If you've been in a whiplash accident and are not doing exercises then your lordosis may never be corrected and you can have lifelong pain. Chiropractic doctors are skilled in assessing the source of the pain associated with a whiplash injury and determining a plan for effective treatment. Chiropractic treatments are gentle and non-invasive. Through small adjustments, people find great relief from the pain associated with whiplash and are set on a road to full recovery.

Call our team at Cherry Tree Chiropractic to discover how chiropractic care can help you recover from whiplash.