An auto accident can occur in the blink of an eye, but the physical and emotional pain can last a lifetime. Injuries sustained during car crashes can be catastrophic in severity, and can inhibit a victim’s ability to move freely or enjoy life. In 2018 alone, there were approximately 4.5 million auto accident injuries that required medical consultation, so car accident injuries are likely even more common than you realized.
Fortunately, chiropractic techniques have been proven to provide long-term pain relief to a vast array of injuries to the musculoskeletal system that can be incurred as a result of a car wreck. In this blog, we will examine the most common treatments that chiropractors employ in helping to heal auto accident injuries, as well as touch on the overall benefits of chiropractic when dealing with car accident injury pain.
Chiropractic Treatments for Auto Accident Injuries
Chiropractic Adjustments: Spinal manipulation is perhaps the most well-known chiropractic technique utilized by chiropractors to treat auto accident injuries. These adjustments are often used to treat joint pain and lower back pain. The chiropractor applies pressure to the back, as he/she positions affected vertebrae that are misaligned or malfunctioning.
Traction: Chiropractic traction refers to when the chiropractor manually applies a pressure and force directly to the patient’s head, back, or limbs. In many instances, the doctor might employ a wedge or pulley system to assist with pressure application. Traction can be utilized to back pain, joint pain, and herniated disc discomfort. Traction is also commonly used to work on degenerative discs and to help improve poor posture.
Hot and Cold Therapy: The use of alternating cold packs and heating pads on an inflamed muscle group after a car accident can not only help with generalized pain, and swelling, but can also improve blood flow to the injured areas.
Exercise: It’s possible that your chiropractor will send you home with a list of exercises to perform, which you can think of like homework for your health. Gentle exercises for the areas impacted by your accident injury can assist in the healing process, as well as just promoting good general health. Depending on which exercises your doctor includes in your routine, he/she can focus on either strengthening or stretching your back muscles (as well as assorted other muscle groups around the body), depending on what your body needs.
Benefits of Chiropractic After an Auto Accident
Because chiropractic treatments focus on finding and treating your pain at the source, as opposed to simply masking symptoms like with pain medications, it is uniquely helpful for actually helping auto accident victims heal from their injuries, and not simply learn to live with them. There are actually several benefits that chiropractic care can offer the accident sufferer.
Helps Detect Hidden Injuries: Some injuries received during an auto accident, especially whiplash, might remain unnoticed immediately after the accident, but could potentially cause pain problems down the road. Chiropractic examinations and imaging can find areas of stress within the body, and can begin eliminating the underlying injuries before they get worse.
Fights Against Inflammation: Inflammation is caused by neuropeptides at the source of the injury. When chiropractic treatments begin to align the spine and the joints of the body, it allows your nerves to begin to function normally again as well, and when your body begins to return to normal, it halts the production of neuropeptides, limiting inflammation.
Non-Invasive: All chiropractic treatments require only the use of skilled hands or specialized non-invasive manipulation tools, and no chiropractic treatment will ever require the use of anesthesia or invasive surgeries, which can not only take months to heal, leave lifelong scaring, but can even go wrong, causing additional injury or death.
Drug Free Pain Reduction: Since a consistent chiropractic routine will enable the accident victim to treat their acute and chronic pain, with results that last long after the appointment is over, chiropractic is a fantastic solution for providing moderate pain relief without the need for harmful prescription medications, like opioid painkillers, muscle relaxers, and anti-inflammatories.
Avoid Long-Term Pain: Because chiropractic treatments can become part of any accident victim’s holistic health routine, you can create a treatment schedule that works for you and your pain, allowing for long-term pain relief. After your chiropractic adjustments have healed the underlying injuries from your accident, it is still important to continue a maintenance schedule of adjustments to help ward off future pain from injuries or stress to your body.
Improves Range of Motion: Car accident injuries to the neck, shoulders, wrists, back, and legs can hinder a patient’s mobility and range of motion, but chiropractic adjustments to the affected areas can not only reduce pain, but also restore range of motion.
Heal Your Auto Accident Injuries with Chiropractic
Whether you receive chiropractic adjustments, massage, hot/cold therapy or other chiropractic techniques to heal your auto accident injuries, know that you are choosing the most effective and safest course of treatments to remedy your injuries, reduce your pain, and improve range of motion, without needing invasive and potentially dangerous surgeries or harmful medications, which means that not only can chiropractic heal your body, it can give you peace of mind as well.