The term whiplash has been around for a couple of decades now. Coined by Canadian researchers, it describes how the neck is thrown forwards, back and then forwards again in a collision in a whip like motion. This happens quickly and it’s this action that causes all kinds of micro tears and muscle problems. Most of the time, people think it can only occur in higher speed incidents, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Check out this video showing the effect at just 6.4 mph!
Quite amazing, isn’t it? So if you’ve been involved in an accident, even at low speed, chances are you have some soft tissue injury caused by whiplash.
If left untreated, the potential is there for that soft tissue injury to cause issues further down the line. Micro tears in the muscles heal randomly and this can cause muscles to tighten and compress the joints. This dysfunction in turn causes friction and inflammation results. Rubbing your hands together for a long time which causes friction and inflammation and results in pain is a good analogy. This happens inside your body with scar tissues replacing the callouses.
Inflammation creates pain and before you know it, you’re suffering when you needn’t.
Treatment of whiplash injuries soon after an accident is relatively simple. Treatment after 6 months of whiplash injuries that have turned into chronic pain is not so simple. And around 33% of all untreated whiplash cases do turn into chronic pain.
So if you’ve been in an accident or you know someone who has, get to an accident doctor as soon as you can. We at Warwick Chiropractic have been treating accident patients for many years and we understand the process too so would be able to provide all relevant documents needed for an insurance claim as well.
Call us today 360-951-4504 or come in and see us. We’re walk in friendly.