Personal Injury Treatment in Tucker
A personal injury can be sudden and devastating. You might go from being healthy and active to experiencing constant pain and struggling to do everyday tasks. Being in pain, missing time at work, and struggling to recover can all contribute to stress and frustration.
But you have options for your Tucker personal injury treatment. At Optimum Health Rehab, we work with patients who have suffered injuries to double-check their diagnosis and create a custom treatment plan. Here is what you need to know about personal injury treatment:
Seek Treatment for Your Injuries as Soon as Possible
It may seem obvious, but it’s actually very common for patients to put off getting treatment for their injuries. There are two main reasons for this:
- The injured patient doesn’t realize they were hurt or that their injuries are serious. This frequently happens after car accidents, when the adrenaline rush helps dull the pain. Many people think they aren’t hurt if they aren’t bleeding or in severe pain, but this is often untrue. You might wake up in pain the next day, or realize over the next week or two that your back is really bothering you. If this happens, we recommend seeing a chiropractor as soon as you can, both because we can help you feel better sooner and because it will be harder to make a liability insurance claim if you wait.
- The patient is worried about the cost of treatment. We understand that healthcare costs can be problematic in some situations, but waiting to seek care doesn’t make it any cheaper – in fact, it could lead to needing more treatment, which would be more expensive. Additionally, if you don’t have sufficient health insurance coverage, you may be able to seek compensation from the at-fault party or their liability insurer. As mentioned above, this will be much easier if you document your injuries with a visit to a healthcare provider. It’s also helpful to meet with a personal injury lawyer if you are hurt and unable to pay for care – they can advise you on your options for getting your medical bills covered.
A Thorough Diagnostic Process is Essential
Often, an emergency room doctor will identify one or more injuries after an accident. They will then prescribe a course of treatment, which could include rest, ice, prescription medication, or in certain cases, surgery. Some patients do respond to these treatments and recover without issue. However, other patients may experience persistent pain, and doctors may not be able to find an ideal treatment. There are several reasons for this, and one is that it’s easy to miss additional causes of injury or pain. For example, a patient who is diagnosed with whiplash, or neck strain, may indeed have strain and small tears in their neck muscles. But they might also have misaligned vertebrae or a compressed nerve contributing to their pain as well.
Another cause for continued pain is that one undiagnosed issue can cause another. For instance, misaligned vertebrae can lead to muscle pain or spasms.
At Optimum Health Rehab, we use a full suite of diagnostics to ensure nothing is missed, including MRIs, CT scans, X-rays, and nerve conduction studies. Frequently we find that in addition to muscle strain or other injuries, the patient may have another treatable issue like a spinal misalignment or nerve damage.
If You Have Persistent Pain, See a Pain Management Specialist
Managing chronic pain after an accident can be difficult. Doctors may prescribe medications that have little to no effect or cause too many side effects. In other cases, they might recommend surgery, which has risks and requires a long recovery. Sadly, many patients struggle to find a good solution and may remain in pain for a long time.
But there are alternatives. At Optimum Health Rehab, we offer multiple alternative treatments that can help reduce your pain and restore mobility in a safe, effective manner. Here are some of the options we may recommend as part of a comprehensive care plan:
Chiropractic Care
It’s a common misconception that chiropractors only work on bad backs. We do help patients with back pain, but we also treat issues of the neck, shoulder, joints, and musculoskeletal system. Pain can also be “referred” from the spine to other areas of the body, so spinal manipulation can be useful in treating pain outside of the back as well.
What does a chiropractor do? We look at your imaging studies (such as an X-ray), take a thorough patient history, then perform a physical examination. Usually, we do this on a special table that allows us to adjust the elevation of your limbs and head. If we find a misalignment in the spine, we will correct it by applying a sudden, controlled force. There’s no need to worry – this process isn’t painful. It’s also very fast in most situations.
These chiropractic adjustments are often very favorable when it comes to reducing pain. The vertebrae that make up your spine are flexible, but can easily become misaligned, especially in an accident that jars your spine. Over time, this misalignment puts strain on nearby muscles and ligaments, causing increased pain. By correcting it, we may be able to relieve the pain, sometimes in tandem with other treatments.
Physical Rehabilitation
Regaining your typical level of control over your body and movements is essential after an injury. For many patients, pain and stiffness restrict their activities, leading to more pain and stiffness. To break out of this cycle, a physical therapist will help you slowly but steadily work your way back to where you were before.
Physical therapy techniques include:
- Heat and cold therapy. Applying warmth to a painful area before exercising can help relax the muscles so you can work more comfortably. Following a physical therapy session, we may use cooling pads to reduce blood flow and inflammation in the area, preventing some post-workout pain.
- Electrical stimulation. Sometimes this is productive for patients who have nerve damage or numbness. Other types of electrical stimulation can be used to relieve pain by scrambling the nerve signals to the brain.
- Therapeutic exercises. Depending on your injuries, your physical therapist may prescribe exercises to strengthen muscle groups around the injured area, or to prevent further misalignments or injuries.
- Neuromuscular reeducation. In this type of therapy, we work to retrain the brain and spinal cord to respond as they did previously. We’ll help you with exercises to improve the control of your movements, work on your balance, and increase your coordination.
- Joint and soft tissue manipulations. Aside from the spine, other joints can become misaligned and cause pain. Sometimes your therapist will use gentle manipulations of the injured joint or muscle tissue to help with the healing process.
- Proprioceptive stretching. Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) was developed in the 1940s and 1950s to help patients with polio, but it was later expanded to assist people with a variety of neuromuscular issues. Your therapist will direct you to stretch a muscle group, then contract against resistance, then stretch it again. This helps to strengthen muscles and greatly increases flexibility.
- Core stabilization exercises. Weak core muscles put you at risk of additional injuries, including back and neck pain. With core stabilization exercises, you will work on the muscles that support your spine and help to prevent an injury recurrence.
- Regenerative medicine therapies. Platelet-rich plasma injections (PRP) are frequently used to assist patients with muscle, ligament, or joint injuries. Plasma is withdrawn from your own blood, then separated into platelet-poor and platelet-rich varieties. The platelet-rich version is “rich” not only with platelets but also with growth hormones and bio proteins that stimulate healing. This treatment is very safe since it comes from your own blood.
Learn More About Tucker Personal Injury Treatment Today
If you’ve suffered a painful personal injury, please contact Optimum Health Rehab online or call (404) 793-1600 for a consultation about your pain and treatment options. Our helpful staff is ready to assist you and answer your questions.