It doesn't matter who's at fault when you're in an auto accident, the reality is that there are injuries that occur and you need to get better. Sometimes people choose to get transferred to a hospital via ambulance after an accident if they are experiencing symptoms at that moment. Typically symptoms such as headaches, neck pain, low back pain, chest pain, arm and leg pain can occur days, weeks or even months after an accident. If you do go to the hospital you will be given a typical exam to check for broken bones, internal bleeding and dislocations. They can do this through a variety of tests like x-rays, MRI, CT scans, etc. This is all good procedural steps, but usually these tests end up negative. They will either treat you at the hospital with muscle relaxants and/or pain relievers or send you to your primary physician for more of the same. From what I have seen over the 25+ years doing this, muscle relaxants make people tired, so many people take these to help them sleep. Pain relievers are usually relegated to over the counter Alieve or Advil. With the opioid crisis in the publics eye, physicians are reluctant to prescribe medications that can be addictive. So, what are you left to do ? Well, you can do nothing. Back pain is self limiting-meaning that with time, the body will heal itself. But, just like a fracture that heals incorrectly, muscles will develop scar tissue formation from being torn and scar tissue develops. Scar tissue is not as pliable as regular muscle tissue and as a result this will limit the range of motion of the joints that the muscles move. It takes only 6 months before degenerative changes will start to appear on x-rays. So doing nothing is a simplistic way to treat this. Essentially anyone who advises this type of treatment is sweeping dirt under the rub. You may not see anything now nut as time goes on you may wonder if the chronic headaches, neck pain, low back pain were a resukt of your auto accident you had three years ago.
A better option is to visit a trauma trained chiropractor that has experience in MRI interpretation, spinal biomechanical engineering, accident reconstruction, spinal trauma pathology and electrodiagnostic testing. Anyone can can throw medication, heat, ice electrostimulation on a patient but the proper way to treat a auto accident patient is to correlate causality with bodily injury and bodily injury to functional loss. We do this through a accurate diagnosis, prognosis and treatment plan. If you are in Chicago or the Chicagoland area like Elmhurst, Villa Park, Lombard, Stone Park, Melrose Park, Maywood, Oak Brook, Addison, or you have been referred by your attorney for a second opinion, call Auto Accident Pain Relief Center of Illinois 24/7 at 800-862-5914.
