Chiropractic Care and Car Accidents

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.
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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!