What To Do After A Car Accident?

Transcription

Today's video is about auto accidents.

We see a lot of these cases in our office, people presenting with whiplash injuries, neck pain, and back pain.

We need to help educate the general population about what to do if you're in an auto accident.

What are your options, and what's the best course of care?

What's the best plan for you to ensure you get better?

There are a lot of people who develop chronic, permanent injuries from auto accidents that were not managed properly.

So that is something we must discuss for people to understand better.

If you're in a car accident, if you've been injured with whiplash or neck pain, we need to understand how to take care of that properly so you're not one of those people left with chronic permanent and sometimes debilitating pain.

So the first thing I like to talk to patients about throughout the peer-reviewed literature is don't wait.

One of the biggest predictors of a successful outcome from recovering from one of these injuries is whether you sought care within the first 30 days of being injured.

And why is that important?

Well, what you don't want to have to happen is you don't want to immobilize that tissue, and I'm not going to do anything.

You hurt your neck. I'm just going to keep my neck still for weeks and weeks.

If you do that and immobilize, you increase the chances of developing scar tissue and scar tissue adhesions, and that type of scar tissue long-term can become permanent.

So one of the things about that, don't wait and seek out care within the first 30 days, is that we want to mobilize the tissue.

That's what the peer-reviewed literature says.

We want to mobilize the tissue, make sure we're not letting scar tissue form so that proper type I, type II collagen is forming in that tissue, and that we're keeping blood flowing to that area while it's healing.

Great ways to help mobilize the tissue and the things that we utilize in our office for our car accident cases is that we like to use a combination of chiropractic care and massage therapy consistently for the first 30 days to prevent scar tissue formation.

And once our patients are at a stable position where we feel that we can start adding some exercises in there, we like to recommend home exercises to strengthen those muscles around that injured area to help rehabilitate those muscles because when you're in a bad whiplash injury like that, say we're dealing with the neck, sometimes those muscles are shut off, so to speak, after that injury.

So what we want to do with those shut-off muscles is turn them back on, which is what the exercise helps us do.

So once we get the patient to a comfortable position and they've progressed properly through their care, we like to add those exercises in and keep that tissue moving, 'cause once again, all of that, keeping the tissue mobile and keeping it moving properly, all is linked to this right here, what the peer-reviewed literature says is, "Don't wait, keep it mobile, don't let it develop scar tissue."

The other thing I talk to patients about, which is also throughout the literature on this, is that many patients with whiplash injuries and car accidents tend to have PTSD.

This is prevalent.

'll notice that if you have a friend or a family member in a tough car accident, they might be nervous about driving.

You could drive them around, and they might get nervous, sweaty palms. Many patients say, "Doc, I put my hands on the steering wheel.

I needed to get my kids to school, and my hands started sweating.

I just froze." And those are the signs of PTSD.

If somebody is extremely nervous about driving again, hesitant when they think about the accident, they're re-living it.

We need to acknowledge that because that is a real thing.

Again, with PTSD, just like with the injury here, the sooner you seek out some care for that, see a psychologist that can help you through that process, the early better because the longer you wait, the worse that can get, just like the longer you wait with whiplash, the worse it can get.

These answer some questions about what happens in a car accident and what to do.

If you have any questions, give us a call.

We've seen these cases for years.

We understand the process. We're happy to answer any questions you have.

I'm Dr. Aaron Seaton with The Chiropractic Place.

Call our office today to schedule an appointment to kickstart your healthy life: 530-221-8443