The Importance of Seeing a Chiropractor After an Auto Accident

Whether you were involved in a parking lot fender bender or high-speed highway collision, it’s vital to get checked as soon as possible. Even a slower, lower impact puts your body through trauma that it’s not used to says Dr Brown, your Greenville, SC chiropractor.

Injuries That Arise

In an auto accident, a person is either struck hard from a stopped position or abruptly stopped from a forward traveling position. Because the body is strapped in with a seat belt, the upper back, neck and head can all sustain injury.

This could be a hyperextension, hyperflexion type of injury when hit from behind, or hyperflexion, hyperextension injury from a vehicle that stops in front of you and causes the head, which is too big for the neck to support it, to sustain trauma.

Injuries we usually see in an auto accident are cervical spine issues (injuries to the neck) that can present as pain in the neck or radiating to the top of the shoulder.

Sometimes pain and numbness in the shoulder travel down to the arm. Headaches can also arise due to either a head injury or cervical spine injury to the neck. We also see upper, mid or low back injuries, which can also refer pain down into the buttocks, hips and legs.

‘But I’m Not in Pain’

Sometimes right after the accident, when the adrenaline is flowing and endorphins kick in, sometimes you won’t notice pain. But later on, when the tissue becomes more swollen, it irritates the nerves. So it’s a good idea to get checked, and the sooner the better.

So even if you’re not having pain immediately, it’s good to be checked to ensure there is no disruption to any tissue or spinal components (the vertebra in the spine). Oftentimes after an accident, it will take 24-48 hours before pain and swelling set it.