Chiropractic, Everett and Whiplash

After practicing since 1993 I have seen thousands of whiplash victims.  I have written about this many times.  I have also written many times about the need for early care with whiplash.  I am reminded once again that early care is so important.  I just had two new patients in the office, one came in two weeks after the whiplash accident, the other the day of the accident.  After a week of care for both there are very different results.

The individual that waited two weeks also used a lot of medication and rest.  If it hurt to move, she did not move.  She was not instructed to move the neck nor to do range of motion exercises.  Consequently when I saw her she had lost about 50% of her neck range of motion (ROM) and had severe neck pain and headaches.  Along with this her head felt heavy and she could barely pick it up off the pillow in the morning.  After one week of care she is better, but her ROM is only slightly better.  She now knows that her pain will not go away until the ROM of the cervical spine improves.  She has to do very painful stretches and exercises everyday and she has to limit her activities. Her first week of care has not been fun.

The individual who came into the office the day of the collision was taught to do ROM exercises and general neck exercises from day one.  She was also instructed to do morning stretches before she got out of bed and how to do gentle home traction.  Along with this we used very light manipulation (adjustments) to the areas of the spine that did not function well due to the collision.  After one week of care she has full neck ROM.  There is still neck pain and she will be in pain for a couple months due to the collision.  But she has progress from day one, compared to starting a week after the collision where there was regression without care and worse that individual that waited for care will ultimately have a longer duration of pain and therefore care.

If you have been involved in a whiplash type injury and have headaches, neck pain, upper back pain, low back pain or shoulder pain don’t sit at home and wait for the pain to go away. Neck pain that has been around for a few days rarely just goes away.  Give us a call at 425/353/7246 and make an appointment. We will do all we can to get you an appointment on the day you call.

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