After a car accident, a visit to a chiropractor may not be the first thing that comes to mind.
However, in many cases, chiropractic care is exactly what you need to treat your injuries.
While broken bones and more serious injuries are easy to detect, many injuries that occur in a car accident are undetectable by x-rays and emergency room medicine.
Chiropractors can detect and treat these injuries, helping to reduce long-term complications and disability, as well as the need for more serious treatment procedures.
In addition, chiropractic care can often make filing an accident claim much easier.
Car Accident Injuries Below the Surface
If your car accident injuries include broken bones or other internal injuries, emergency room doctors treat these conditions and help to stabilize your health.
However, many car accident victims suffer from injuries that doctors cannot always see. Backaches, neck pain (such as whiplash), muscle stiffness, muscle soreness, and restricted range of motion are common injuries associated with car accidents.
Unfortunately, conventional medicine does not offer very many treatment options. In these cases, a doctor will likely prescribe pain and anti-inflammatory medications and send you on your way.
While these may make you feel better, they are only masking the injuries and not treating the real problem.
What Does Chiropractic Care Do?
While visiting an emergency room after a car accident is essential to address any serious injuries, the chiropractor should be your next visit.
Chiropractors can identify symptoms, such as back and neck stiffness and sore muscles, and determine their cause.
Instead of just numbing the symptoms with medication, chiropractors perform spinal and joint adjustments and manipulation that can stimulate natural healing within your body.
Chiropractic care offers many different benefits for car accident victims.
The Benefits of Chiropractic Care After a Car Accident?
Visiting your Franklin chiropractic care clinic after a car accident can provide these benefits:
- Reduces Inflammation – A car accident can cause micro-tears in the muscle and ligaments in your body. Unfortunately, these are not noticeable in a standard x-ray available in the emergency room. With chiropractic care, spinal adjustments help to produce natural anti-inflammatory properties that encourage natural healing of these tears. This also helps to reduce the pain and discomfort these tears cause.
- Reduces Scar Tissue – After a care accident, damage muscles often develop scar tissue that can lead to muscle pain and stiffness. A chiropractor can target this scar tissue, helping to break it down and promote healing. This reduces muscle pain and stiffness.
- Restores Your Range of Motion – Stiffness in the back and neck after a car accident, such as with whiplash, often reduces your range of motion due to inflammation. Chiropractic adjustments can help to restore your normal range of motion.
- Reduces Pain and Decreases the Need for Pain Relieving Medication – Traditional pain management after a car accident includes prescription pain medications. Unfortunately, these medications are often linked to addiction and dependency. Chiropractic adjustments address the actual injury, helping to heal the damage without the need for masking pain. In addition, chiropractic adjustments encourage the release of pain-reducing hormones that help you feel better immediately after treatment. This treatment allows you to reduce or eliminate the need for pain medication.
- Reduces the Risk of Long-Term or Chronic Conditions – In many cases, muscle and ligament injuries that occur in a car accident begin as minor injuries. Unfortunately, when left untreated, these minor injuries can worsen and progress to serious or chronic conditions. Chiropractic care addresses and treats these minor injuries, allowing your body to heal and reduce the risk of injury progression.
- Reduces the Risk of Surgical Treatment – When minor injuries progress, they can worsen and, in some cases, require surgical intervention. Seeking chiropractic care immediately after a car accident in non-invasive and helps promote natural healing. In many cases, this is enough to heal the body and avoid the need for surgery.
Chiropractic Care can Help with Car Accident Insurance Claims
When it comes to a car accident that was not your fault, insurance claims require documentation of injuries.
While emergency rooms will document serious injuries and broken bones, soft tissue injuries, such as muscle tears, are often difficult to document. In this case, seeing a chiropractor helps to document all your possible injuries.
They will document every injury, including whiplash, and provide the treatment for these injuries. By listing all your injuries, you are covered should you experience complications down the road. In most cases, insurance claims also cover chiropractic care as a treatment option.
