If you’ve read any of my other articles or seen my posts you should know by now how critical it is to aggressively treat whiplash injuries from the beginning. Symptoms from Whiplash Accidents can appear almost immediately or take days to appear.
Too many ER and Urgent Care physicians will tell people to follow up in weeks if the symptoms do not resolve. And, primary care physicians are no better. Unfortunately, what these doctors fail to appreciate is that a large percentage of whiplash injuries go on to result in long term chronic pain.
According to the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgery between 15% and 40% of people involved in auto whiplash accidents go on to experience chronic neck pain.
My experience as both a patient involved in a head on collision decades ago and having treated thousands of people is that much of this can be avoided and much of the chronic pain can be greatly reduced with appropriate and timely care.
It Has to Make Sense or You’re in Trouble
I just found a rather inaccurate article in The Atlantic that falsely stated…
“There is no way to prove or disprove most claims of whiplash injury.”
That is absolutely garbage and if you encounter a doctor of any kind that is unable and unwilling to document your injuries and offer treatment specifically designed to support your healing then find another doctor.
There are plenty of ways to prove most every claim of whiplash injury. I’ve done that for years. It is not always possible to find the cause of every symptom someone experiences following whiplash but it is possible to prove whiplash and document the injuries.
How do we do that? That’s actually the first key.
The Top 4 Essential Keys
Essential Key #1: Proper Diagnostic Exam and Studies. The combination of the history of the accident, presenting symptoms, and a physical exam indicate what diagnostic tests need to be performed to identify the tissues that were injured. Some possible tests include:
- X-rays to rule out fracture but also to evaluate ligamentous injury with motion studies.
- CT Scans to evaluate for brain injury that is common with whiplash.
- MRI to assess for any disc injuries.
- EMG / NCV are nerve tests to determine injury to nerves into the arms or legs
- Bone Scans to rule out fracture to ribs that don’t show on x-rays
These tests and others will always demonstrate some injury to bone or soft tissues as a result of whiplash. Once we know exactly what is injured, treatment becomes easier.
Essential Key #2: Early and Aggressive Treatment. The healing process starts immediately following trauma. The goal of any whiplash treatment is to support the injured tissues in healing as completely as possible.
Too many ER, Urgent Care, and Primary Care physicians take a wait and see attitude and tell patients to follow up if they continue to experience persistent pain. This is not only wrong, it is dangerous and risks long term complications due to incomplete healing.
Essential Key #3: Tissue and Injury Matched Treatment. In order for the treatment to work and help support healing it must match the type of injury and the tissues that sustained injury. For example while medication might be desired to control pain in the beginning it will do absolutely nothing to facilitate healing.
If you break a bone you immobilize the fracture in a cast to support healing.
If you injure joints then the focus of the treatment must include a restoration of proper joint motion.
Essential Key #4: Treatment that matches the healing process. Many people are surprised when they are not fully recovered and feeling great within 2 to 3 weeks. After an injury the soft tissues of the body go through a healing process through specific phases of healing. The remodeling phase can last many months post injury.
As someone goes through the different stages of healing the treatment might change to match that stage.
I hope you are getting the idea that there is no such thing as starting treatment for a whiplash injury too early or being too consistent in treating the injury. There is much greater risk in delaying proper treatment and allowing injuries to heal with dysfunctional scar tissue.
Scar tissue left to heal without proper motion itself the body with tissue that is not as healthy as the previously uninjured tissue. It is less elastic and weaker than healthy tissue. When this scar tissue surrounds joints in the neck it causes….
- Restricted motion of the joints
- Increased pain
- Altered mechanics of the joints leading to degenerative arthritis
The vast majority of whiplash injuries accelerate the degenerative process of the joints of the cervical spine. The goal of treatment is to optimize function, reduce pain, and slow the breakdown of the injured joints.
Treating whiplash soon and aggressively has no downside but delaying treatment is associated with greater long term issues.
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