I put this topic together after listening to
my patients who have been in car accidents. I wanted to dispell
some myths and get the facts straight so you know what to do
and look for if you are ever in an accident.
Fact or Fiction?
I was in an accident and we called the police.
We shouldn’t move our cars so that the policeman could
see exactly what happened.
Fiction. Please, for your own safety, move the injured vehicles
out of the way. The cops don’t need to see how it happened
and they would rather see you make every effort to be safe
by getting out of the way of traffic. Moving your cars out
of the way makes all the other commuters happy too.
After the accident, I went to the hospital for
some X-rays. The doctors there told me that everything
was fine, so I don’t need to worry, right?
Usually this is Fiction. The fact is, when an MD says you’re
all right, what they usually mean is that there are no fractures
or internal bleeding or any other life-threatening injury present.
However, this doesn’t mean that everything is OK. There has
usually been some damage to the muscles or ligaments that stabilize
the structure of the spine. This can cause pain and can result
in major spinal misalignment. As the injured soft tissue heals
over the next 8 to 12 weeks, it is crucial that the alignment
of the spinal joints be restored. If not, the soft tissue will
heal and lock these joints down into their misaligned position,
which can lead to a whole host of symptoms that may occur weeks,
months, or even years after the accident occurred.
(This one’s for the lawyers) There was no damage
to the car. There must not be any damage to me.
Again, usually this is Fiction. The fact is, all that force
of impact between two or more cars has to go somewhere. If
it doesn’t get transferred into the steel or fiberglass of
the car, then it may get transferred into you. Some of the
worst cases I’ve seen are where a person was only going 10
miles an hour and backed into someone. Major injuries can be
suffered even though there was no damage to the car. This one
goes hand in hand with the next one.
After our vehicles collided, we got out and
inspected the cars. There was no damage, so we decided
not to file a report with the police or report it to
our insurance. That was the right thing to do, right?
Fiction. Although you may feel no symptoms in the moments after
a car accident, most symptoms that you will suffer from after
a car accident do not start until 48-72 hours later. If you
do start to suffer bad symptoms that you feel are related to
a recent accident, like neck pain, headaches, fainting spells,
or tingling and numbness in the hands or feet, you may be facing
some stout medical bills. If an accident report wasn’t filed
or reported, when you go to your car insurance company and
tell them about it, they’re not going to cover any of those
bills because you have no documentation. Do not assume that
no damage to the car means that there is no damage to you.
Cover your bases and get the other person’s information. Wait
for the authorities to arrive. File an accident report. It
may be an annoyance, but it’s better than being stuck with
a pile of medical bills.
I know that a car accident can cause whiplash
and neck pain, but accidents can also cause low back
pain too, can’t they?
Fact. Research is showing more and more consistently that while
the neck is the primary site of whiplash, the lower back is
a secondary site for whiplash and can undergo the same acceleration/deceleration
forces that affect the neck. What I usually see in the lower
back is a lot of abnormal twisting in the joints where the
pelvis and the spine meet.
The symptoms that I’m having now couldn’t possibly
be related to the accident I had ten years ago. I didn’t
have any pain or anything after that accident.
Fiction. While it’s impossible to definitively say what caused
the problem areas in your spine, the pattern that I usually
see is this. Loss of proper structure of the spine followed
by lots of spinal degeneration that after being there for years
and years, one day finally starts to cause symptoms. It’s a
very long time between when the cause occurred and when the
effects are felt. In accidents, usually the cause/effect delay
occurs much quicker – around 48 hours – but it would be wrong
to assume that the accident wasn’t the cause. It could take
years.
About eight to twelve weeks after the accident,
my pain went away without treatment of any kind. So,
my problem is fixed now, right?
Fiction. When there is a sprain of the spinal ligaments or
strain of the spinal muscles, there is an 8 to 12 week healing
period for those tissues. Inflammation of these tissues is
necessary for healing, and sometimes part of the inflammatory
process is pain. As you come out of that healing period, the
pain will start to subside because the inflammation of those
soft tissues is subsiding. Without chiropractic intervention
though, those muscles and ligaments will heal and tighten over
a spine that is now misaligned. Over time that misaligned spine
can lead to some symptoms. So, the bottom line is this: No
Pain does not always mean the problem is no longer there. In
a case like this it just means you’re coming out of an intense
phase of inflammation.
My MD prescribed Physical Therapy for me after
the accident. That’s just as good or better than Chiropractic,
right?
Based on my experiences with my patients, I would have to say
this is Fiction. I believe that Physical Therapy can help with
a variety of conditions, but ultimately, in cases like these,
it’s not addressing the cause of the problem. PT does not seek
to realign the spine, and sometimes the therapist may use a
lot of force in no specific direction or employ some overly
aggressive stretching techniques. If you have a cervical sprain
or strain, you don’t need intense stretching and range of motion
exercises right away. Your soft tissues will go through an
inflammatory phase (which can be painful) followed by a “remodeling” phase
where stretching and range-of-motion exercises would now be
appropriate. I will also say this: Doctors of Chiropractic
are the only healthcare professionals who are trained and qualified
in correcting subluxations, misalignments in the spine that
cause interference to the overall function of the nervous system.
Most of my patients who tried PT immediately after a car accident
weren’t satisfied at all with their results.
Chiropractors just want me to keep coming back
forever and ever, and the bill is going to be extremely
high.
Fiction. In an auto accident, the length of time for treatment
is going to be between 8 to 12 weeks usually. It could be more,
but it could be less. It depends on the extent of injuries,
age of the patient, etc. My primary job is to ensure that while
the muscles and ligaments are healing, they’re healing over
a spine that is in alignment. After that 8 to 12 week period,
I will review all objective and subjective criteria with a
reexamination to. If the patient has improved to my satisfaction,
then the patient is discharged from treatment for injuries
sustained from the accident. I feel it’s crucial to define
an endpoint for the care you receive in these cases, and I’m
going to make good, honest recommendations, no matter who’s
footing the bill.
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