Whiplash Overview
Have you experienced neck or spine injuries following a car accident? You may be suffering from whiplash symptoms, a common yet painful injury caused by sudden movement and impact.
What is Whiplash?
Whiplash is a soft tissue injury to the neck that commonly occurs during car accidents. The sudden impact can cause a back-and-forth or side-to-side jerking motion that strains, stretches, or overextends the muscles and ligaments in the neck. This may result in injuries to the nerve roots, cervical muscles, or intervertebral joints, ligaments, and discs.
Signs of Whiplash
The most common symptom of whiplash is neck pain. This pain may be caused by damaged and inflamed tendons and muscles that were overextended during a car crash. As bruising and inflammation takes several hours to develop after an strain, initial whiplash symptoms may not be present for 6 to 12 hours after the initial injury.
Whiplash symptoms may also include:
- Neck stiffness
- Myofascial injuries
- Headaches
- Dizziness
- Sensations of burning or prickling
- Shoulder pain
- Back pain
- Muscle spasms
- Decreased range of motion
In extreme cases, whiplash symptoms may include brain damage or traumatic brain injury.
According to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, some people may experience additional symptoms, including difficulties with cognition or the development of somatic or psychological conditions. These symptoms may include:
- Memory loss
- Inability to concentrate
- Increased nervousness or anxiety
- Irritability
- Sleep disturbances
- Fatigue or malaise
- Depression
Treatment for Whiplash
Treatment for whiplash symptoms and injuries may include medications including pain relievers, anti-inflammatory drugs, muscle relaxers, and antidepressants. For more extreme whiplash injuries, a cervical collar may be worn to support the neck for several weeks during the healing process.
Physical therapy, motion exercises, or chiropractic visits involving stretching or rotating the neck may be helpful to regain a full range of motion. Temperature therapy may also be helpful. For cases of whiplash, applying heat rather than ice is recommended in order to loosen tense muscles.
Diagnosing Whiplash Injuries
According to the Cleveland Clinic, X-rays, MRIs, and CTs are often unhelpful in diagnosing whiplash injuries. The damage that occurs during whiplash is often too small to be seen in these tests. Whiplash symptoms are the primary way that patients are diagnosed with these kinds of injuries.
Most whiplash injuries heal within a few days or months. However, some sufferers claim to still feel the whiplash symptoms for much longer. Between 12 and 50 percent of people continue to experience persistent neck pain a year or more later.
You may be more likely to have persistent whiplash symptoms if you suffer from severe pain right away after the accident, experience cognitive or psychological issues, or your pain spreads from your neck to your extremities.
If you have been involved in a car accident and required medical attention including physical therapy or chiropractic visits for whiplash injuries, you may be entitled to join a car accident lawsuit investigation. As whiplash injuries may not present immediately following an accident, you may still be eligible even if your car accident occurred months or years ago.
