If you’ve been in a recent car accident, you may initially worry about common injuries like whiplash, broken bones, or cuts and bruises. These are usually some of the first things car accident doctors will look for, but another common injury you may not be thinking about is a pinched nerve. A pinch may sound like a mild annoyance, but these injuries can be severe and require special treatment to heal. Pinched nerves actually refer to an instance where there is too much pressure on a specific nerve from a surrounding muscle, tissue, bone, or tendon. Not only can this be serious, but it can be very painful, so it’s important to understand what to do if you may be suffering from this issue.
Causes of Pinched Nerves
Nerves are tasked with sending messages throughout our whole body in the form of electrical impulses. Damage to these nerves impacts the communication system and can lead important systems in the body to lose their proper function. Different nerves perform different functions. Motor nerves allow us to move, sensory nerves send messages back to the brain, and autonomic nerves control systems in the body, and all of them work together for proper functioning.
When you’re in a car accident, different nerves can become pinched by different forms of impact and injury. For example, the common condition of whiplash involves the head and the neck and can cause nerve damage in that area, while a severe laceration could damage nerves on the limb where the damage has occurred. One of the most common cases is when blunt force trauma is caused by an impact strong enough to cause a misalignment in the spine that compresses a surrounding nerve. While any part of your body that is hit against a hard surface can have this occur, pinched nerves in the spine are one of the issues most commonly seen by car accident doctors.
Signs of a Pinched Nerve
Like many car accident injuries, symptoms of a pinched nerve may not become apparent for hours or days after an accident, once the adrenaline and shock wear off. Even if you have not noticed symptoms yet, it is important to seek care from car accident doctors early on. They may be able to identify a pinched nerve even before you experience pain.
In addition to general pain after an accident, a pinched nerve is usually accompanied by numbness and tingling in a body part. This is similar to the feeling of your foot “falling asleep” but may be more severe or prolonged. Legs and arms most commonly have these symptoms, but they can appear throughout the body, though they will usually only be in one location at a time. While this may seem like a simple annoyance, over time it can escalate to loss of motion or even paralysis.
Other signs of a pinched nerve may include twitching and spasms in the affected area, sensitive skin, or tenderness in the area. Extreme temperatures can also worsen these symptoms. There is usually no visible evidence of nerve damage, so it is important to pay attention to how you are feeling if you experience these signs.
Treating a Pinched Nerve
It is only in severe or chronic cases that invasive treatment like surgery becomes necessary. When it is performed, surgery may involve removing bone spurs or herniated discs that are causing compression and have not been remedied with other treatments.
The most common treatment recommended is simply resting in order to avoid worsening or aggravating the compression of the nerve. Depending on the location, this could be aided by a splint or brace, though this does not always apply. Pain can be managed with over-the-counter medication and ice or heat therapy.
Physical therapy is typically used to help address the root cause of your nerve pain By strengthening and stretching the muscles in the impacted area, pressure on the nerves can be relieved. This is usually paired with chiropractic adjustments that help the spine to align properly and remove compression from the surrounding nerves.
It is important to find a car accident doctor who will create a treatment plan focused on addressing the root cause of your nerve pain. Pinched nerve pain may disappear for some time, but that does not mean the issue has been repaired and without treatment, it may recur over time.
