Whether you’ve been injured in a car accident or during sports activities, chiropractic care can be a valuable part of your recovery journey. With a focus on natural healing and restoring your body’s balance, chiropractors can help alleviate pain, reduce inflammation, and enhance your mobility. Through gentle adjustments and personalized treatment plans, they target the root causes of your injuries, promoting a quicker and more effective healing process. Don’t let injuries hold you back – explore the benefits of chiropractic care for a smoother path to recovery.
Car accidents can happen to anyone. If you are lucky, all your vehicle will get is a small dent and you will just have minor scrapes and bruises. Before celebrating your good fortune, however, make an appointment with an auto-injury chiropractor for chiropractic care. You may have undetected injuries that may cause you many problems later on.
Hidden Injuries from Auto Accidents
When a car accident happens, you get thrown forward and then backward, and may even be jerked side-to-side. All of these movements increase the possibility of creating tears in your neck and back muscles and even causing the misalignment of your spine.
If the emergency room doctor can see no visible wounds, you will probably be sent home with a muscle pain reliever and a painkiller, with a reminder to come back should you feel worse. Often, though, we may not be able to keep that appointment, and any unknown injury may remain untreated and manifest itself in chronic neck and back pain.
The Role of a Chiropractor: Chiropractic Care
An auto injury chiropractor is a licensed medical professional, trained to detect and treat car accident injury tissue injury resulting from car accidents. They are experienced in assessing the spine for any damages and abnormalities.
If you have been in a car accident before and are experiencing persistent headaches and back or neck pain now, you will probably benefit from chiropractic care. These symptoms, no matter how mild they may be, could worsen if they remain untreated.
There’s no need to worry about what will happen during a consultation with a car injury chiropractor. As medical professionals, they have the necessary knowledge and equipment required to treat your wounds. In the first session, you will probably have an x-ray taken by the chiropractor to see the extent of the damage, and a thorough assessment will be done to help formulate your treatment plan.
A Chiropractor’s Methods of Treatment: Chiropractic Care
Chiropractors use a variety of treatment methods depending on the type of injury you will present. If your spine is misaligned, they will use manual manipulation to correct it. They may also use sonic (sound) vibrations to stimulate your bones, muscles, and blood vessels, to improve their development and circulation.
Heat packs, deep tissue massages, and stretching and breathing exercises may also be done and assigned for you to do at home. An experienced car accident injury doctor can help make sure that your muscles and vertebrae in the spine are in proper alignment after a car crash. Consult one now to get relief from headaches, neck, and lower back pain.
Find Injury Chiropractor
You find yourself sitting in your car, reeling through emotions after being rear-ended by another vehicle. You get out and check out the damage, exchange insurance, and driver information and wait for the police to arrive. What do you do now? After calling your insurance company to file a claim, you should think about seeing your regular physician, and you should also begin your search for an auto-injury chiropractor.
A chiropractor is a medical practitioner who specializes in evaluating and treating issues that result from nerve, organ, spine, and connective tissue damage, due to falling or being involved in a car accident. They do a thorough evaluation and look for any unseen injuries. Sometimes it can take weeks, months, or even years for an injury received in an accident at the surface. Moreover, at times you may not even know you were injured, despite suffering from symptoms such as headaches, stiffness, pinched nerves, numbness, tingling, irritability, and even the sensation of coldness in your hands, legs, feet, and arms.
Choosing an Auto-Injury Chiropractor
However, how can you find a quality auto-injury chiropractor? You can find many chiropractors by searching online, or by calling your health insurance company for a listing. You can also obtain a referral from your primary care provider, or get suggestions from family or friends who have seen a chiropractor in the past.
You may even be referred to a specific chiropractor by your car insurance agent, or you can be pointed in a particular direction by your auto injury attorney, who may have working relationships with chiropractic professionals who will help you and your attorney complete a medical injury claim for legal proceedings.
Finding Quality Chiropractic Care
As you can see, there are several ways to find a quality chiropractor. You may even find one that offers a free initial consultation and examination to determine if further visits are necessary. If ongoing treatment is deemed necessary, you may undergo gentle spinal manipulation as well as adjustment to make sure that your spinal cord, vertebrae, and nerves are in proper alignment.
When the spinal system is not aligned correctly, you may notice a difference in your range of motion or experience pain when attempting to do everyday things. Your chiropractor may suggest physical therapy as part of your treatment plan and even offer suggestions on exercises that you can do at home and work. Either way, finding the right chiropractic specialist with experience in auto injury is the first step in ensuring your future physical health.
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Chiropractors Can Help with Sports Injury Treatment
All sports enthusiasts – aspiring athletes, seasoned pros, or weekend warriors – have some things in common. All of you want to have the best performance possible in whatever sport you are in while striving to avoid any sports injuries.
However, life, as we know it, is not perfect and all of us have limitations and sports are not an exception. Anyone who is sports-inclined experiences sports-related injuries. In other words, sports injuries can be minimized but cannot be entirely avoided. That is a proven fact based on several studies in the past.
The good news, however, is that anyone who is suffering from a sports injury can undergo a physical rehabilitation process even without spending too much time and money going to a physician or a medical doctor that performs a medical procedure for treatment. Sports injury treatment by chiropractors is gaining more and more popularity today as an alternative way for sports injury rehabilitation.
How can chiropractors help with injury treatment?
They can check the function of each joint, your muscle, and your nerve supply, making it sure that they are in good condition and doing the necessary rehabilitation for improved performance. Some excellent chiropractors can immediately normalize or improve the function of the body and joints through various neurological, muscular, and nutritional procedures.
- While chiropractors’ sports injury rehabilitation focuses on establishing proper neurological control of the joints and muscles, they also employ physical therapy for extended-session rehab programs.
- They work best by identifying and correcting the root source of the problem as in many cases physical pain has its underlying cause and that is one of the areas that chiropractors are focused.
- They also address overuse or repetitive strain injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome.
- Chiropractors also work to help athletes who experience traumatic injuries such as those conditions associated with ligament pain, the tissue that connects bone to bone and the body muscles.
- Aside from the treatment of physical injuries, chiropractors also work to give mandatory counseling and health programs that are aimed at providing patients with useful insights regarding the importance of proper diet and nutrition.
- While many people are going to medical doctors to seek treatment for their physical ailment, more and more individuals are seeing the benefits of going to chiropractors as an alternative – just like those people who are into sports and have experienced the benefits of chiropractic treatment.
Whiplash Injury: What Can a Chiropractor Offer
Each year approximately 2 million Americans suffer a whiplash-type injury. Chiropractic care can be extremely beneficial in these cases. A Chiropractor can help assist patients with both the short and long-term effects of whiplash-associated injuries. Before we consider the numerous unique benefits offered by Chiropractic care in the treatment of whiplash, let’s briefly discuss what exactly a whiplash injury is.
What exactly is whiplash? Surprisingly, the name “Whiplash” isn’t an official medical term at all. Rather the term “whiplash” is a non-medical term commonly used to describe a sprain and strain injury to the soft tissues of the neck. Whiplash is considered an acceleration-deceleration type injury and occurs when the cervical spine, or neck, is abruptly forced to stretch and move beyond its normal range of motion. This typically involves the neck suddenly extending backward and then flexing forward beyond the normal anatomical range of motion. This results in an overload injury due to excessive forces being placed on the cervical spine. The initial injury is thought to be the tearing of muscle and ligament fibers within the neck. Although predominately an injury to the muscles and ligaments, whiplash may also include injury to the intervertebral joints, discs, and nerve roots.
Understanding Whiplash: Causes and Effects
The degree of damage can range from minor to severe.
As if the initial injury were not bad enough, the response of the body post-injury can further complicate matters. After the injury muscles in and around the area respond to by contracting in spasms to splint and stabilize the area. This limits the movement of the head and neck and is the body’s noble effort to prevent movement and further injury. Essentially the body attempts to make its soft collar to limit the motion of the head and neck. Unfortunately, this can eventually lead to chronic pain, inflammation, stiffness, and loss of range of motion.
Whiplash is usually associated with an automobile accident, but it can occur in many other instances. Whiplash can also be caused by things such as a fall, or an impact or collision in a sporting event or recreational activity. Some examples are a fall from a horse, a collision in football, or an impact experienced in basketball, boxing, or hockey.
Symptoms of whiplash
What are some of the symptoms of whiplash? A Headache is a frequent symptom of a cervical strain. In addition to headaches and neck pain, other symptoms of whiplash may include:
- Neck stiffness
- Dizziness
- Shoulder pain
- Back Pain
- Changes in vision
- Abnormal sensations in the neck, hands, and arms (such as burning, pins and needles, numbness, or tingling)
Surprisingly, symptoms are not always an accurate indication of whether or not a patient has whiplash. Contrary to common misconception, whiplash is not always apparent at the time of injury. Many victims of whiplash-related injuries often do not consult with a healthcare provider because they do not have neck pain at or immediately near the time of the accident or injury. This is a mistake because symptoms of a cervical sprain and strain can take the chance to manifest themselves. Generally speaking, the onset of symptoms is much faster in more severe injury. A serious case of a whiplash injury may cause pain and symptoms immediately or within hours. In a more mild case of whiplash symptoms may not occur for weeks or months.
About Author
Dr. Jeremiah Carlson is a licensed chiropractor serving the Jacksonville community. Dr. Carlson has been improving Jacksonville’s health for over 15 years. As a chiropractor with experience, Dr. Carlson is committed to finding the proper diagnosis while promoting optimal health and well-being of his patients. Following diagnosis he will evaluate for misalignments in the spine and then use chiropractic manipulation to correct them. Correcting spinal misalignments can reduce joint pain, relax spasmed muscles and calm overactive nerves. Dr. Carlson’s approach is to create balance between the joints, muscles and nerves to reduce or eliminate pain.
