Motor Vehicle Accidents: The importance of receiving treatment ASAP

How many of you have been in a car accident? Even a minor one? Now, how many of you that DID NOT get chiropractic care are suffering from chronic migraines, headaches, neck pain, low back pain and even numbness and tingling?

My reason for this blog is to educate you on what changes your body goes through in these whiplash accidents, even those that are minor, ie. travelling less than 5 mph. I can't stress to you enough that even in MINOR accidents, treatment is absolutely mandatory if you do not want chronic pain.

The first thing that I would like to do is explain soft tissue healing. The first thing about understanding soft tissue injury healing is understanding what normal soft tissue looks like. Normal, undamaged soft tissue has a crisscrossed pattern to it when you look at it under a microscope. In a whiplash accident, ie. car accident, muscles/tissues actually TEAR.

The tissues that were torn bleed into the region for approximately 72 hours. That is why it is common for the patient to feel worse each day for the first 3 days after an accident.

The torn tissue will start to heal. Tissues are laid down to bridge the tear that occurred. This new tissue is unlike the original tissue. The way that this tissue heals is also different because:

1. They are not aligned in the same direction.

2. They have smaller diameter fiber that has a kind of glued and matted together quality.

Therefore, the resultant healing tissue has three important characteristics different from the original tissue.

To outline the three characteristics, the new tissue is weaker, stiffer, and more sensitive.

It is impossible to get a perfect heal because the tissues are weaker, stiffer, and more sore, and may have periodic flare ups of pain and/or spasm. These are the rules rather than the exception. There is plenty of data to substantiate these types of findings.

Therefore, our chiropractic goal is to get the tissue to more closely resemble the original soft tissue in terms of structure, and hence function.

Chiropractic Benefits

The therapeutic benefit of the movement of soft tissue appears to lie in the mechanical stress imparted to the developing scar. In other words, movement enhances the healing process by stretching and breaking the adhesions or cross-links formed between the fibers of the scar’s developing network. (5, 6, 7, 8)

Therefore the scar that has healed in the presence of movement, manipulation, soft tissue therapy, and exercise more closely resembles the original tissue in terms of structure and hence function. (5)

Also, for your reference I am adding two pieces from literature stating that soft tissue injury causes pain and disability that is essentially permanent. These are the results from those studies:

RESIDUAL SYMPTOMS AFTER 10 TO 15 YEARS AFTER MVA (Motor Vehicle Accident) IN 62% OF THESE:

44% CHANGED PERMANENTLY TO LIGHTER WORK

62.5% MODIFIED LEISURE ACTIVITY (9)

RESIDUAL SYMPTOMS MEAN 10.8 YEARS AFTER MVA:

ONLY 12% RECOVERED COMPLETELY

RESIDUAL SYMPTOMS INTRUSIVE IN: 28%

SEVERE IN: 12%

RESIDUAL SYMPTOMS: NECK PAIN 74%

PARASTHESIA 45%

LOWER BACK PAIN 42%

HEADACHE 33% (10)

That is why we do everything we are able in the months following a soft tissue injury (specifically whiplash) to insure the patient the best possible healing of the tissue; the best possible prognosis and the best possible outcome for his or her future.

If you have been in a car accident, please contact our offices. In most cases, not all, you have something called Medpay through your car insurance that will cover your medical expenses. It is not too late to get the care that you need. Please avoid chronic pain symptoms and let us know what we can do to help.

Take responsibility for your health. TODAY.

Dr. Courtney Conley