Car Accident Treatment in Grayson
The aftermath of a car accident can be very unpleasant. You may be in a lot of pain, sometimes to the point of being unable to go to work. Pain medication can make you drowsy, cause other side effects, and for some people, narcotic pain relievers may lead to addiction. Sometimes your doctor might recommend surgery, but this can be risky and doesn’t work for everyone. In fact, some patients find their pain grows worse after an operation.
But for many car accident injuries, there is a safe alternative to prescription medications and risky surgery: car accident treatment from a Grayson chiropractic and wellness clinic. Our chiropractors and other specialists are committed to helping you avoid surgery or serious side effects from common medications. Instead, we use a holistic approach to treat you as a unique individual. We take a detailed history, ask about your accident and any previous treatment you’ve had, and then we run tests to diagnose the root causes of your pain. Once we’ve identified the issues, we create a customized treatment plan to reduce your pain and improve your mobility and range of motion.
Here are some of the treatments we use to help people with car accident injuries:
Chiropractic Care
How is Chiropractic Care Used for Car Accident Treatment?
Chiropractors use their hands to manipulate the spine or joints back into the proper alignment. This manual treatment is effective for many cases of neck, back, or joint pain that follow a car accident. Chiropractic adjustment serves several purposes:
- It helps improve circulation in the area, allowing the body to heal itself.
- It improves flexibility and, over time, may improve your range of motion in the affected areas.
- It corrects misalignments of the spine or other joints, which can cause considerable pain, not just in the misaligned joint itself, but also in other areas. This is called “referred pain.”
- By correcting misalignments, chiropractic care may also relieve pressure on nerves or blockages that cause pain.
How Does Chiropractic Care for Car Accidents Work?
After doing a physical examination and running imaging studies, such as X-rays or an MRI, your chiropractor will perform a physical exam. They will most likely ask you to lie on a table that allows different areas of the body to be elevated. This facilitates chiropractic care by allowing the chiropractor to apply a controlled force to a specific joint as needed.
Is a Chiropractic Adjustment Painful?
This is a very common question. You should not feel any pain during an adjustment. Some patients barely feel anything and may even be surprised when we tell them we’re done. Occasionally people experience mild discomfort or soreness after a session, but this is usually due to improved blood flow to the area and should resolve quickly.
Often a chiropractic adjustment makes a popping or cracking sound, similar to what you might hear when cracking your knuckles. This is because gases like carbon dioxide can settle in the joints, and as we push them back into alignment, the gas escapes, causing the sound. This is also not painful, but some people are surprised by it.
Massage Therapy
Massage therapy is often used with chiropractic adjustments and other therapies to diminish pain and improve your range of motion after a car accident. It can be used to treat various injuries in different areas of the body and may be particularly effective for neck and back pain. One study found that one-hour massage sessions done 2-3 times a week were effective at relieving neck pain, which is very common after car accidents.
There are several different types of massage therapy, and your chiropractor may recommend one of these based on your particular injuries and needs:
- Myofascial or trigger point therapy. Myofascial tissue covers your muscles, organs, bones, and nerves, but these tissues can become tight or knotted in response to inflammation or injury. In trigger point therapy, your therapist will feel the myofascial tissue, and when they come across a knot or rigid area, massage it until it relaxes. This can be an excellent treatment for myofascial pain syndrome, which frequently occurs after a whiplash injury from a car accident.
Regenerative Medicine
Regenerative medicine seeks to help the body’s tissues heal themselves. One of our most popular regenerative treatments is platelet-rich plasma therapy or PRP.
What is Platelet-Rich Plasma Therapy?
This is a process where we use your body’s own platelets and bio proteins to heal a painful joint, muscle, tendon, or ligament after an injury. First, we draw some of your blood, then we place it in a piece of medical equipment called a centrifuge. This machine spins around, separating the different components of your blood. Your plasma, a yellow liquid that contains antibodies, proteins, and clotting factors, is divided into two samples – one is rich in platelets (PRP) and one is poor in platelets. The platelet-rich plasma is siphoned off and injected into the joint or muscle that’s causing you difficulty. We can do this all in one appointment, preparing the PRP injection while you wait.
PRP is excellent for damaged muscles or joints that haven’t responded to previous treatments because the bio proteins and other components in the PRP sample speed up the healing process. It’s also made from your own blood, so there is no risk of rejection or a reaction to the treatment. Some people may experience mild discomfort after the procedure as part of the healing process, and we recommend you take it easy for a few days afterward. However, many patients return to their normal activities quickly. Typically, the pain relief from a PRP injection lasts longer than steroid injections and without potentially serious side effects like bone thinning.
Neurology Services
Neurological issues and nerve pain often occur after car accidents. In many cases, they are secondary to other issues, such as spinal misalignments or muscle tears. For example, a misaligned spine can easily put pressure on a nerve, leading to pain, and in some cases, numbness and tingling. If your car accident caused a herniated disc in your back or neck, for example, the disc could be pressing on a nerve root, leading to intense pain.
Symptoms of nerve pain or damage include:
- Numbness or lack of feeling in the area connected to the nerve.
- Pain that may feel sharp or even burning, and that spreads outward.
- A tingling or “pins and needles,” similar to what you might feel when your foot falls asleep.
- Muscle weakness in the area connected to the nerve.
Diagnosing Nerve Pain and Neurological Damage
Nerve pain can be confusing, because it could be one of several root causes for your pain, especially following a car accident. For example, the accident may have caused several spinal misalignments, muscle tears in the neck, and a compressed nerve somewhere in your neck or back, all at the same time. It would be easy to only diagnose and treat one of these problems.
At Optimum Health Rehab, we believe in being thorough and identifying all possible reasons for your pain and other symptoms. If we suspect nerve pain, we may do a nerve conduction test or other studies to better treat your injuries. We’ll also take a detailed history, ask about your symptoms, and perform a physical exam to get a better idea of your challenges.
If we do determine that nerve pain is at least one cause of your pain, we may consider one or more of the following treatments:
- Chiropractic adjustments to reduce pressure on an affected nerve.
- Physical therapy to help learn the extent of the nerve damage and to improve function.
- Pain management injections. This option is usually a very short-term strategy used to help relieve the patient’s pain so they can do physical therapy or other activities to help address the root cause of the issue.
- Regenerative medicine, like PRP, may be helpful in some cases of neurological damage.
When Should You Seek Car Accident Treatment from a Grayson Chiropractor?
As quickly as possible after the accident. The sooner you see us, the sooner we can work to diagnose and treat your injuries. Coming in earlier will also make your claim against the other driver’s insurance company much easier to pursue. However, many people wait to seek treatment because they don’t think their injuries are that bad, or they don’t realize they’ve been hurt at all. Not everyone experiences pain from their injuries right away.
If you didn’t get treatment immediately after your accident, the next best time to address your injuries is now. Please contact us at Optimum Health Rehab for an evaluation and treatment plan by calling 678-985-7286 or visiting us online.