Following an auto accident, head and neck pain can rear their ugly heads. What many people don’t realize is that this pain may be part of a very serious, long-term auto injury called whiplash. This injury occurs when your head and neck are “jerked” forcefully in a backward-forward motion. Most commonly, we see this following rear-end collisions. However, any type of auto accident can cause this trauma to occur. Whiplash-inducing trauma can occur during sports, physical assault, horseback riding, cycling accidents, falls, or amusement-park rides.

How to Know If You Have a Neck or Head Injury

Whiplash can be very difficult to self-diagnose due to the fact that it may not show up right away. Many people actually brush off medical assistance at the scene of an accident because they don’t feel any pain. However, it often takes a few hours for symptoms to show up. It’s also not uncommon for symptoms to show up a full 24 hours after an accident. Here’s a glance at the most common signs:

• Neck pain.
• Dizziness.
• A headache.
• Blurry vision.
• Excessive tiredness.
• Ringing in the ears.
• Trouble with concentrating.

Following an accident or injury of any kind, it’s important to seek medical attention if you have any of these symptoms. It’s also especially important to seek care if you feel numbness or weakness in any part of your body. While all of the symptoms listed above are strong indicators that you’ve experienced neck or head trauma, it’s impossible to make this diagnosis on your own at home. What’s more, simply suspecting that you have an injury won’t necessarily help you to get relief from pain. When left untreated, symptoms can last anywhere from a few weeks to a lifetime. On the conservative side, 10 percent of people afflicted with the condition end up with chronic pain that interferes with work and everyday life. If you’re dealing with pain impacting your neck and head following a trauma, a chiropractor can provide an evaluation to confirm your suspicion that you have this condition.

What Do Chiropractors Do To Treat for Head and Neck Pain?

If you have head and neck pain lingering following a car accident, auto injury, or some other type of incident, it’s essential to be evaluated to get a diagnosis. In many cases, manual adjustments and other chiropractic treatments enable people to get relief from painful symptoms. At Genesis Chiropractic, we have a wide variety of imaging and diagnostic tools that allow us to pinpoint the source of your pain. We can customize treatments to get you on the path to healing following an accident or injury.

Dr. Tiffani Fries and the Genesis Chiropractic team help people recover following car accident injuries. Please contact Genesis Chiropractic to learn more about treatments if you’d like to book your appointment.