 Dr. Bob is here to talk about a very common situation people find themselves in at some point in their lives - car accidents! Have you been in a car accident recently? Continue reading to learn why you may want to stop by and see us!
Hey everybody! It's Dr. Bob Salamon with Lowcountry Chiropractic! I hope you're all well out there and staying safe! Today we are going to talk about something pretty common on the roads here in South Carolina; car accidents! Since so many of us deal with car accidents, it is very important to talk about their effects on your body and what you can do to help yourself. Today we are going to be talking about the injuries that affect your spine after a car accident. The most common type of injury you'll find from a car accident is a whiplash injury. This injury can happen when you're stopped at a red light and someone comes plowing into the back of your car. Your head will flex back and forward very quickly, causing a shock to your neck and spine. What commonly happens is that this will create tension and stress on the muscles around the base of your neck, the top of your shoulders, and your upper back. When you are in a car accident, the damage done to the car does not necessarily correlate to the damage done to your body. Many insurance companies will try and reason that since your car wasn't damaged very badly you must not have been either. In these situations, medical bills might not be covered or taken care of, which can be very frustrating. The bottom line is that you were inside the damaged vehicle and subjected to rapid damaging motion from the impact of another car. This was not your fault, and you are now left with the pain in your back to show for someone else's mistake. When an accident occurs, what typically happens is that police will be called, papers and information are traded, and you may or may not take a trip to the hospital to get a CT Scan, some x-rays, and other procedures to see if you have any serious damage. A lot of patients come and pay us a visit after their trip to the emergency room. This comforts me to see them after an ER visit because I know they have already been checked out and they don't have a brain injury, fracture or other serious issues. Of course, we are still going to take our own set of x-rays when you come to get checked out at our offices after an accident. We do this because what we are looking for is not what your ER doctor was looking for. We are looking at whether the accident negatively affected the spine to cause the pain you could be feeling. We are looking to see if the accident caused your spine to get misaligned thus affecting spinal nerves. It is my job as a chiropractor to restore alignment to your misaligned vertebrae and to take the pressure off of the nerves coming out of those vertebrae. Irritated nerves from misaligned vertebrae can cause back pain, headaches, radiating pain down your arms and into your hands, sciatica and many other issues. Inflammation is going to be a big problem when you get into a car accident, and as we know, inflation causes pain. My job is to get you realigned (adjusted) and out of pain as quickly as possible. My advice is to visit your chiropractor as quickly as possible, to avoid being in pain for long periods. For those dealing with the effects of car accidents, therapeutic massage therapy is a wonderful service. The massage therapist will relax your affected muscles and remove toxins.. I will almost always have my personal injury patients see a massage therapist before an adjustment. This will allow me to do a more effective job adjusting your spine. I did want to make it very clear that even if you feel fine after an accident and have no symptoms, you should get checked by a chiropractor anyway. Symptoms can occur days, weeks, or even months after an accident, and you don’t want a car accident to leave you with chronic issues. I hope this has helped all of my readers out there. If you have unfortunately been in a car accident, please give us a call or send us an email. We would love to help you. We've helped lots of people with these issues and have a lot of experience in the area of personal injury. Until next time, I'm Dr. Bob and I've got your back covered!
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 You might not get a prescription for a visit to the chiropractor after a fender bender or any car accident. In reality, visiting your chiropractor needs to be one of the first things you do after an accident. Seeking out chiropractic care immediately after a car accident can limit or eliminate future pain caused by your accident.
Hi everybody! It's Dr. Bob Salamon here once again with another blog about the benefits of chiropractic care! I hope you all are staying safe and well out there! Today, we are going to be talking about car accidents. We have a lot of car accidents in this town, don't we? In light of that, I wanted to talk about what you should do in the aftermath of any car accident you have. Of course, the police will come to the accident site, and if you're injured badly you'll be transported to the hospital, but what about your back and your spine? You might receive an MRI or CT scan when you reach the hospital and possibly even x-rays. They will also always give you medications after you've received care, like muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatories, and so on. Most times, if there is a whiplash injury, meaning you've been hit from behind (which is the most common type of injury in car accidents) you are diagnosed with a sprain or strain of the affected areas (like your neck and back). You'll simply be told to go home and rest. I am here to tell you that this may not be the best advice! A car accident can be a very traumatic injury to your spine. As we've mentioned before, the spine houses your spinal cord. You have 24 vertebrae that are separated by discs, and in between each vertebra, a spinal nerve emanates. You have a spinal nerve on both sides of your spine, and you have 31 levels in total. This means you have 62 nerves coming out of your spinal cord. When you experience trauma and your vertebrae shift or move, it's very easy to damage or pinch at least one of those 62 nerves. Invariably, with most accidents, even if it's just a small fender bender, your spine and your nerve system are going to be compromised. As a result of this, you might feel pain in that affected area or you might not feel it until some time later. If there is damage the pain could appear the next day or it could wait to show up a week or even a month later. By that point, you might be questioning why you're waking up with pain, and it's usually going to be related to that car accident. The best thing you can do after an accident, unless you are very seriously injured and you need to go to the hospital, is to go to your chiropractor. If you visit us right after a car accident we will give you a very thorough exam, we will take X-rays, and we will make sure that things in your spine are where they're supposed to be. If they're not, we will immediately get to fixing those misalignments called subluxations, take the pressure off your affected nerves, and help you start feeling better. We can align everything again so that later down the road you're not going to have chronic problems. I see a lot of patients who come into my office with pain connected to car accidents that happened years ago, and because they didn't get chiropractic care, their pain is now something they struggle with daily. It's important to understand that when you get in a car accident, you need to go get checked by a chiropractor. I hope this helps! If you have any questions, give us a call. We see a lot of patients with pain related to car accidents. If you have any issues with your spine or health, please reach out to us. We would love to meet you and help you out in a natural and kind way for your spine. Until next time, I am Dr. Bob and I've got your back covered! |
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