One of the biggest misconceptions about car accidents is that if you don’t experience any pain right away then you aren’t injured. In fact, car accident injuries are often known in the medical community as hidden injuries because it can take a while for their signs and symptoms to fully appear. A traumatic event like a car accident can cause your adrenaline to start pumping and, in some cases, people even go into shock. The trauma response to such an event can actually mask pain and other symptoms of an injury. That’s why you should visit car accident chiropractors after you’ve been in a wreck, even if you haven’t started experiencing any symptoms yet.
The Importance of Treatment After a Car Accident
In some cases, paramedics get called to the scene and will check you over for injuries from the car accident. If you visit an emergency room or urgent care after an accident, you will receive care for your immediate injuries but will need to see a car accident doctor for continued and follow-up care. But what about car accidents that don’t involve paramedics or a trip to the emergency room? You should always visit a car accident doctor as soon as possible even if you aren’t experiencing any pain symptoms. The best-case scenario is that you don’t have any injuries from the wreck. But if you do end up having any injuries, you can get started on treatment right away. Delaying treatment for car accident injuries can cause chronic pain and other complications.
Common Car Accident Injuries with Delayed Symptoms
There are several types of car accident injuries that can come with delayed symptoms after you’ve been in a wreck. Here are four examples and what those delayed symptoms might be like and when they might appear.
Whiplash
Whiplash is one of the most common car accident injuries and it can affect the head, neck, and upper back. Swelling and inflammation are common with soft-tissue injuries, and as the tissues become inflamed it can cause pain and discomfort. Neck pain, tenderness, and sore, stiff muscles are common with a whiplash injury. Many people don’t experience whiplash symptoms until hours or even days after the car accident.
Spinal Injuries
Many people are surprised to learn that injuries to the spine may not be easily recognizable right away. In fact, it can take days for you to fully recognize that something isn’t quite right with your spine after a car accident. An injury to the spinal discs that separate the vertebrae, known as a herniated disc, can cause pain, tingling, weakness, and numbness in your neck and even shoot out into your shoulder and arm. These symptoms may get worse with certain movements over time.
Strains
Muscle strains are common with car accident injuries because of how the body is affected by the force of impact. When the body gets jostled around during a wreck, the muscles can tense up and stiffen as a reaction. Strained muscles may feel tight, stiff, and sore, causing pain with certain movements. Just like with a particularly strenuous workout, you may not fully experience the soreness and stiffness accompanied by muscle pain until a day or two after the event.
Concussion
A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury that can have immediate symptoms as well as delayed ones. What you might first mistake for a headache could turn out to be a head injury from the accident. Concussion symptoms vary from person to person and may include headaches, dizziness, disorientation, nausea, vomiting, and sensitivity to light and sound.
How Car Accident Chiropractors Can Help
Car accident chiropractors can offer you an all-natural and non-invasive approach to diagnosing and treating car accident injuries. Car accident chiropractors offer treatment techniques that include chiropractic adjustments, therapeutic massage, hot and cold therapies, decompression therapy, and active rehab. Chiropractors focus on resolving any misalignments that may be affecting your ability to function healthily. Addressing misalignments in the spine can also resolve nerve compression, herniated discs, and other common car accident injuries and symptoms. Chiropractors work with the entire musculoskeletal system and can even help with damage to soft tissues like muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
At Accident Doctors, our team of car accident chiropractors will perform a thorough assessment after you’ve been in a car accident and diagnose any injuries as soon as possible so you can get the care and treatment you need.
