When you suffer an injury from a car accident, a chiropractor can provide assessment, treatment, and therapies for many symptoms and conditions. While some injuries will require medical care at an emergency department or trauma center, a chiropractor is a good option for neck and back pain, joint injuries, or sprains or strains. Even if you suffer serious injuries, a chiropractor can help manage symptoms and prescribe therapy for rehabilitation.
Seeing a chiropractor for your car accident injuries is a good idea for many reasons. Keep reading to learn more about them.
Why See a Chiropractor After a Car Accident?
Some of the reasons why you should see our chiropractors after your Florida auto accident include the following:
1. Getting Pain Relief
Our chiropractors and therapists provide pain management strategies without using narcotics or other prescription medications. This approach can make a significant difference in your quality of life, mobility, and mental health when you have an injury such as whiplash, a herniated disc, or a joint injury after a collision.
2. Restoring Motion and Mobility
It is not unusual for car accident victims to struggle with stiffness, limited range of motion, and even limited mobility because of their injuries. This condition is especially common in the initial days after an accident. Our chiropractors can prescribe adjustments and exercises to help you heal and restore your full range of motion.
3. Reducing Swelling and Inflammation
Chiropractors prescribe techniques and manipulations that help increase blood flow and reduce inflammation in almost any injured area of the body. These techniques can reduce swelling and other symptoms, such as limited range of motion and pain.
4. Preventing Long-Term Issues
Often, car accident injuries can lead to chronic pain or other ongoing issues if they do not receive proper treatment promptly after a crash. This condition is especially true of neck and back injuries. Getting a diagnosis and comprehensive treatment plan for the underlying injury is essential.
5. Detecting Injuries as Soon as Possible
Some injuries are not apparent immediately after an accident. If you do not have symptoms, a doctor giving a general assessment might overlook them. One of these conditions is whiplash, which commonly affects car accident victims. Our chiropractors will carefully examine your neck and upper back, as well as other areas of the body, to identify any hidden injuries before you develop serious symptoms.
6. Receiving Noninvasive Treatment
Chiropractors focus on providing noninvasive care and do not depend on narcotics or other strong medications for pain management. Instead, they use spinal adjustments, complementary therapies, and physical therapy to treat injuries, encourage healing, and rehabilitate injured body parts.
7. Getting a Customized Treatment Plan
Our chiropractors prescribe every patient an individualized treatment plan designed to meet their specific needs and help them reach their goals. We also monitor progress and alter these plans as necessary to ensure they continue to address concerns and treat injuries in the best way.
8. Improving Overall Health
We provide holistic treatment. While our treatment plans address specific injuries, they also work to improve your overall health. In addition, our chiropractic care can work alongside other types of medical treatments to help you recover more fully.
9. Documenting Your Injuries
Documenting your injuries and treatment is essential if you seek compensation to pay for your injuries and other losses. This record-keeping is true whether you file a personal injury protection (PIP) no-fault claim or you sue the at-fault driver to pay for your care. Our team understands this importance and provides detailed records showing your injuries and treatments.
10. Reducing Scar Tissue
Scar tissue can become a significant issue if you do not get treatment quickly or have complications in your healing. We prescribe treatments that will help break down the scar tissue and help you recover more fully.
11. Addressing Health and Well-Being
Our chiropractors want you to leave our care stronger and healthier than you were before your accident. We can address your specific injuries while also improving your overall health. We use rehabilitation and physiotherapy to build stronger muscles and increase flexibility, often beyond the patient’s initial baseline. We can also offer tips and tricks to help address other health concerns, such as nutrition and sleep hygiene.
12. Supporting Mental and Emotional Health
When you see a chiropractor to treat your car accident injuries and manage your pain, you are taking a positive step for your emotional healing, too. Focusing on your physical health can do wonders for your emotional well-being. Knowing you are taking care of your body can reduce stress and improve your quality of life.
How Our Car Accident Chiropractors Help Crash Victims Recover
Our chiropractors prescribe personalized treatment plans focused on chiropractic care and physiotherapy. These plans manage symptoms, treat underlying injuries, rehabilitate the affected areas, and improve overall health to prevent future injuries.
We begin this process with an initial intake examination. This exam could include:
- A comprehensive health history
- Discussion about the accident and your symptoms
- A physical exam
- Medical imaging, such as X-rays
- Some baseline measurements, such as range of motion
Once our practitioner completes your exam, they will diagnose your injuries and use their knowledge and experience along with what they learned about you to develop a personalized treatment plan. There are no one-size-fits-all treatment plans in chiropractic care. Each patient is different and has differing needs. The personalized plan will address your specific needs while considering your overall health and goals.
Many of our patients begin with their personalized plan the same day they see us for their initial appointment. Getting prompt help with pain management and beginning treatment as soon as possible is important. You might receive spinal manipulation, complementary therapies like massage or ultrasound therapy, and some physical therapy exercises during your first appointment.
You will continue to come back regularly for treatment while our chiropractors and therapists follow your progress. As necessary, we will alter your treatment plan to ensure continued healing and meeting your goals. We often see our patients exceed their goals and leave our care stronger and more flexible than they were initially.
Our Team Can Help You Recover More Fully From Your Florida Car Accident Injuries
Our chiropractors aim to help patients manage injuries, recover, and prevent future injuries to the affected body parts. Sometimes, a crash can result in a weakened joint or ligament that causes problems for years to come or is easily re-injured. We can help rehabilitate the body to ensure this is not a problem.
The staff of our chiropractic clinic includes:
- Medical doctors
- Neurosurgeons
- Chiropractic physicians
- Physician assistants
- Chiropractic physician assistants
We have a wide range of experience and training to provide key treatments and therapies that not only heal injuries but improve quality of life long-term. One major advantage of choosing a chiropractor for your case is that all our therapies are noninvasive, and we never prescribe narcotics or other prescription medications that could have significant, dangerous side effects. We use natural options for pain management and reducing inflammation.
Our care complements the treatment you might be receiving from another doctor. Many of our patients suffered serious car accident injuries and came to see us in addition to going to an emergency department or family doctor and receiving treatment for fractures, lacerations, concussions, or other injuries.
There are few contraindications for our services, and we are careful to follow them and provide only safe and effective care. Many of our therapies are designed to help patients heal more fully from their injuries. For example, we provide therapies that can help you restore balance, proper gait, and mobility after a traumatic brain injury or increase your strength and coordination after a spinal cord injury.
What Treatments Will an Auto Accident Chiropractor Prescribe for My Injuries?
The treatments and therapies you receive as a part of your personalized treatment plan depend on your injuries and unique needs. Your practitioners will perform adjustments, manipulations, and therapies to help you heal and recover from your injuries and reduce your risk of re-injury.
Some of the types of care often included in a personalized treatment plan created by a chiropractor for a car accident victim could include such things as:
Spinal Adjustments
Many chiropractic treatments center around adjustments or manipulations of the spine. There are specific techniques used to address different concerns with the cervical, thoracic, or lumbar spine and to treat different conditions. The focus of many chiropractic adjustments is to realign the spine, take pressure off nerves, reduce pain, and improve the function of the joints between vertebrae.
Most treatment plans involve some form of spine adjustment or manipulation, although those focused on complementary therapies and pain management might not.
Soft Tissue Therapy
Chiropractors often provide effective treatments for reducing inflammation, managing pain, and promoting the healing of injuries involving the soft tissues. One example of this is whiplash. Whiplash occurs when an accident forces the head back and forth beyond the neck’s usual range of motion. This action injures the muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the neck and upper back.
Soft tissue therapy provides targeted treatments that alleviate these symptoms and increases blood flow to the area to encourage tissue healing.
Joint Mobilization
When a joint injury occurs, it most often affects the soft tissues around the joint. This includes the ligaments and tendons as well as the muscles connected to nearby bones. For this reason, these injuries often involve soft tissue therapy and joint mobilization for treatment.
Joint mobilization uses specific techniques to work through a full range of motion in the affected joints, improving their function and helping them heal properly. This technique is usually followed by rehabilitation exercises to rebuild strength and reduce the risk of other injuries to the joint.
Physical Therapy
Most treatment plans developed by a chiropractor involve physical therapy. These plans involve learning exercises and stretches from a therapist who then gives you a plan to repeat them at home before your next appointment. Depending on your plan, you may have several exercises to repeat once or twice a day or only need to do them a few times a week.
The goal of physical therapy is to regain strength and improve flexibility lost because of your injuries.
Functional Rehabilitation
Many plans also include functional rehabilitation, which is similar to physical therapy. It includes exercises and activities designed to help you regain full function of the injured body parts. This process could include range of motion, relative strength, and dexterity. This rehabilitation could also include addressing concerns about balance, gait, and required tasks at work.
Sometimes, chiropractors see patients for physical therapy, functional rehabilitation, and pain management, even when another type of doctor or specialist serves as the primary care provider for their injuries. For example, a patient might see a chiropractor for therapies following a traumatic brain injury or surgery for a torn ligament.
Other Complementary Therapies
Chiropractors provide symptom management that is drug-free and noninvasive whenever possible. This is a great option for anyone who wishes to avoid narcotics but needs help managing their pain, inflammation, and other activity-limiting symptoms while they heal.
When a patient has pain, they almost always have some type of complementary therapy in their treatment plan. This could include ultrasound therapy, massage therapy, electrical stimulation (E-STIM), cold/heat therapy, or many others. Most of these therapies manage pain and promote healing by increasing the blood flow to the affected area.
Call to Learn How the Naples Community Injury Center Will Treat Your Injuries
The Naples Community Injury Center treats car accident victims from our three locations: Naples, Marco Island, and Estero, Florida. We are accepting new patients at all three clinics now. Contact us to schedule your initial intake exam.
We can answer your questions and explain our process more. We have more than 60 years of combined experience in helping car accident victims recover. Let us help you bounce back.
