How Whiplash Affects the Spine

recovering from whiplash. Whiplash
describes an event where typically it’s
a traumatic event where your head steps
forward and back very rapidly. Most
commonly is with automobile accidents,
but it could happen with any kind of uh
trauma accident like a motorcycle crash,
uh sports injury, a fall on the ice
where you hit your head on the ground. A
lot of these things can occur uh when
there’s trauma, a sudden jolting forward
and back of the body, specifically the
head and neck. Now, if you go to the
hospital, the first thing you’re going
to check is to see if anything’s broken,
anything major is wrong. Once they rule
that out, it’s important that you visit
your chiropractor. And this is why
because typically what we see with the
whiplash is a straightening of the neck.
As the neck straightens, the joints
don’t mobilize as well. Uh, it develops
stiffness in the muscles. It could cause
pressure on different joints, more
stress on the joint, can create
inflammation, irritation on the nerve.
And here’s the funny thing about any
type of whiplash injury. Most of the
time patients will have neck pain, uh,
upper back, shoulder stiffness, even
front of the neck, and even headaches.
But they don’t always come on
immediately. Sometimes it could be
weeks, months even where these symptoms
will start to appear because your body
will adapt for a period of time. So,
it’s very important you get checked by
your chiropractor for do two different
things. We want to make sure everything
is moving proper. there’s proper motion
throughout the joints of the spine from
the top of the neck all the way down to
your tailbone. Also, we want to make
sure that there is no malignment, bad
positioning of the bones because this
can put stress and strain on those areas
again creating that inflammation,
creating problems. So, words of advice,
if you are in an accident, go to the
hospital, get checked out. Also visit
your chiropractor because there’s a lot
of underlining things that the hospital
will not pick up and not will not be
looking for and can impede your recovery
process.