It’ll soon be a winter wonderland out there, and you know what that means: more automobile accidents. Whether an icy road causes a fender bender with the car in front of you, or you slide off the highway in a snowstorm, even a minor winter accident injuries can lead to chronic pain.
Common Injuries
Trauma to your legs and arms are common in auto accidents. Even if you only realize for a second that an accident is about to happen, your body will brace itself, tensing your arms and legs as you prepare for impact. This not only can injure muscles but also joints at the wrists, ankles, and shoulders. These injuries may be from a fractured bone or from stretched muscles or tendons. Because the shoulder moves in many different ways, it is highly susceptible to injury in an auto accident.
Whiplash is one of the most common auto accident injuries. Even an accident at a low speed can cause the head to jerk forward and back violently. Whiplash is a soft tissue injury damaging the ligaments and discs occurring around the cervical spine which is the area of the spine in the neck. If left untreated, pain from whiplash can last for months or even years.
Another common auto accident injury is tinnitus. This ringing in the ears can be long-lasting but can be relieved with chiropractic adjustments that can restore the automatic nervous system that affects the inner ear.
Often, injuries associated with an auto accident are difficult to detect and symptoms don’t always show up right away. Chiropractors are trained in finding these types of injuries and implementing a treatment plan to relieve or eliminate your pain. Pain that is associated with auto injuries can often be treated with spinal adjustments rather than simply masking the problems with harsh pain medications. Spinal manipulations by a trained chiropractor can treat and can cure the underlying injury.
Prevention
One way to prevent auto accident injuries is to not get into an auto accident! Of course, preventing them altogether is unrealistic but you can take steps to lower your risk of having one.
- Clean all snow and ice from your car including the roof and hood where it can fly off as you’re driving and cause an accident.
- Check the weather before you go out so you’re prepared for winter driving. Better yet, stay home if the weather is bad.
- Prepare your vehicle. Make sure you have good wipers, a full wiper fluid reservoir, and a snow brush/scraper. A good set of snow tires is worth the price and you may also want to have your battery checked to make sure it won’t quit on you when the mercury drops below freezing.
- Slow down. Icy roads can seemingly come out of nowhere. Driving slower will decrease your risk of losing control when it does.
- Increase your stopping distance. As a rule of thumb, you should be one car length behind the car in front of you for every 10 MPH you’re going. If the weather is bad, increase this as much as you can.
- Allow extra time. If you’re running late, it’ll be harder to keep from speeding. Give yourself plenty of time to reach your destination and bring a book to read in case you’re early.
- Drive defensively. Assume you’re the only person who’s prepared for winter driving because you just might be.
At North County Pain Relief, we can help relieve pain from many different types of injuries, including those from an auto accident. With targeted spinal adjustments and other treatments such as physical rehabilitation therapy, electric muscle stimulation, hydrotherapy, and cryotherapy, we can improve your mobility and decrease your pain to get your body back to the way it was before the accident.
Call North County Pain Relief today at (314)731-4201 to make an appointment. Our staff can help you through the entire process and explain your rights and all insurance procedures, no matter who was at fault in the accident. We use traditional diagnostic testing to diagnose your injuries and then come up with a customized, comprehensive plan for your treatment. We can even help with transportation to our office if your car is inoperable after the accident. The sooner you call, the sooner we can relieve your pain and get you on the road to recovery.
