Auto accidents happen every day. If you’re unfortunate enough to be involved in one, it could be weeks before you feel the full effects of the trauma. This is why visiting a chiropractor for an auto injury is important.
The benefits of seeing a chiropractor after an auto injury or accident are numerous.
- A Chiropractic Doctor Check For Injuries
- Reduce Inflammation
- Non-Invasive Treatment
- Effective Pain Treatment
- Avoid Dangerous Medications
- Treat Whiplash Effectively
- Reduce Stress and Promote Healing
- Reduce or Prevent Scar Tissue
- Important For Insurance and Settlement Purposes
Even if you think you’re okay after the accident, it’s a good idea to get checked by a doctor of chiropractic just in case. You can prevent more serious issues from developing and ensure that you won’t have lasting negative symptoms.
Injury From a Car Accident
There is a wide range of injuries that you can suffer after an auto accident. Some of them may be minor scrapes and bruises, while others may be a little more serious. Most people in a car accident are lucky if they walk away without minor injuries. Of course, it all depends on many different factors. Some of these include:
- How fast the vehicle(s) were going.
- Whether you were wearing your seatbelt.
- The car’s safety features.
- The type of accident, i.e. fender bender, head-on collision, t-bone, etc.
- Whether you were able to prepare for the impact.
Unfortunately, in the immediate aftermath of any car accident, most people don’t take these things into account. They are generally in no position to take a look at themselves and determine whether they’ve truly been injured or not.
This is why it’s good to get a professional medical opinion from a chiropractor.
Note: If you’ve suffered serious auto injuries you should seek emergency medical treatment immediately. These include broken bones, concussion, severe lacerations, head injuries, and severe pain.
Should I Go To A Chiropractor After a Car Accident?
Many people wonder if they should go to a chiropractor after a car accident. If you’ve never been to a chiropractor before, you may be skeptical of the treatment you’ll get. If that’s you, this article will answer your questions. In fact, going to a chiropractor after a car accident is one of the best things you can do for your body and your overall well-being.
Chiropractor After Auto Injury Benefits
The nature of an auto accident is such that the joints in various parts of the body are often jarred. This can cause damage to the joints themselves and, in the case of the spine, the discs between the vertebrae. It’s these injuries that chiropractors specialize in treating. They take a full-body approach to healing, which also includes inflammation, pain reduction, and long-term benefits that go above and beyond just auto injuries.
So read on to learn 9 Benefits of Seeing a Chiropractor After an Auto Injury.
1. A Chiropractic Doctor Check For Injuries
In many cases, the extent of a person’s auto injures is not apparent right away. There are a couple of reasons for this:
- Adrenaline just after the accident.
- Delayed onset of symptoms and pain.
There’s nothing you can do about the body dumping adrenaline into the bloodstream immediately following an accident. And the adrenaline will usually mask pain and keep you from feeling the injuries. You can wait for the adrenaline to leave your bloodstream, but you still may feel okay if the symptoms and pain are delayed. This is common after a car accident.
In some cases, it can take up to a week for people to feel the full extent of their injuries, at which point it’s too late to be proactive in treatment. This is one of the numerous benefits of chiropractic care after an auto injury. The doctor of chiropractic can check for injuries and treat them accordingly.
2. Reduce Inflammation
Inflammation and pain after a car accident often go hand-in-hand. After all, inflammation is the body’s natural reaction to trauma. But when inflammation and swelling last too long, they can be detrimental. Chiropractic care is ideal for reducing swelling at the right time in order for your body to heal and to treat the underlying injury.
Since inflammation causes pain, chiropractors address inflammation and pain in a number of different ways. These include:
- Ultrasound therapy
- Cold laser therapy
- Heat and ice therapy
The faster you seek chiropractic treatment after an auto injury, the faster you can get back to normal and put the accident behind you.
3. Non-Invasive Treatment
Many people are vaguely familiar with what chiropractors do. They know that they perform spinal adjustments to help back and neck injuries (like whiplash). Adjustments are one of the most useful non-invasive treatment options that chiropractors provide. But not many people are familiar with how adjustments work.
The spine can experience a lot of trauma after a car accident, causing it to come out of alignment. This can cause pain in the muscles of the back. In fact, if the auto injury results in a bulging or herniated disc which presses on a nerve, the pain can be felt in the arms, legs, abdomen, shoulders, neck, and head.
Chiropractic adjustments bring the spine back into alignment, treating the cause of the pain instead of the symptoms. And chiropractors only use safe, non-invasive treatment options. This helps avoid long-term issues and complications that often accompany surgery or medications with dangerous side effects.
4. Effective Pain Treatment
As briefly mentioned above, chiropractors will never treat only the symptoms of the pain. The whole philosophy behind chiropractic care prevents this from happening. They take a full-body approach that treats pain while aiming at the underlying cause of the pain.
Sometimes the pain treatment and the treatment of the underlying cause are one and the same. Other times a chiropractor may treat the pain first and then treat the cause of that pain when the patient is able.
5. Avoid Dangerous Medications
Since chiropractors never aim to treat only the pain, you won’t find them prescribing dangerous medications. The opioid epidemic has shown us that there are many better ways to treat pain that don’t involve addictive medications. For this reason, chiropractors may advise non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, but they will use non-medication treatment options for pain. And they do this effectively.
There have been several studies showing how beneficial chiropractic care can be for those suffering from chronic pain. One study showed that those receiving chiropractic care for spinal pain were 64% less likely to fill an opioid prescription than those not receiving chiropractic care.
6. Treat Whiplash Effectively
Whiplash is one of the most common injuries among those involved in an auto accident. The pain from whiplash can take days or weeks to become fully apparent. And without treatment, long-term whiplash injuries can take a toll on one’s health. This is why seeing a chiropractor for whiplash is incredibly beneficial.
Since whiplash is primarily an injury to muscles and ligaments of the neck, there are some common treatment options chiropractors use. These include:
- Chiropractic massage.
- Spinal manipulation.
- Trigger Point exercises.
- McKenzie exercises.
- Stretching.
A chiropractor will also give you some tips and things to do for whiplash to increase healing and maintain comfort. By seeing a chiropractor within two or three days of your injury, you can take a proactive approach to healing and pain relief. This can also help you prevent long-term issues due to the whiplash injury.
7. Reduce Stress and Promote Healing
Even the most minor auto injuries can cause a great deal of stress in one’s life. Dealing with the insurance companies, getting your car fixed, and dealing with the pain of your injuries can all be a little much, on top of everything else in your busy life. Luckily, chiropractic care is a great way to reduce stress and promote healing.
One of the major tactics chiropractors use to help relieve stress is chiropractic massage. And this type of massage can be beneficial in more than one way. Massage can help promote blood flow, which flushes toxins and promotes the healing of damaged or stressed muscles. In this way, both mental and physical stress can be reduced through chiropractic care following an auto injury.
8. Reduce or Prevent Scar Tissue
Scar tissue is the body’s way of helping damaged muscles and tendons to heal. But the buildup of scar tissue can cause long-term pain and stiffness. Since chiropractors deal with the musculoskeletal system, they know how important it is to break up scar tissue. They do this in a number of ways, including deep tissue massage, the Graston Technique, and the Active Release Technique (ART).
9. Important For Insurance and Settlement Purposes
In some cases, if you want the cost of visiting a chiropractor to be covered by insurance, you’ll want to make sure and visit one within a certain amount of time. The time required tends to vary by state and insurance company, but visiting a chiropractor within three days is often best.
Without the diagnosis and records provided by a chiropractor, it can be hard to present a case for the at-fault driver’s insurance company to cover the care. But even if you’re not looking to submit records proving your injury, it’s a must to visit a chiropractor after an auto injury.
Resources:
https://europepmc.org/article/med/9168407
https://academic.oup.com/painmedicine/article-abstract/21/2/e139/5575223
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1836955315000582
https://www.healthline.com/health/active-release-technique#how-it-works
