Car accidents

[Guest Guest]

Hi. In the past month, I have been in 2 very minor car accidents. I think I mentioned the first one. The second one happend when I was taking a taxi home from work, about 10 days after the first accident.

 

Anyway, my question is: How can you tell if muscle pain in the neck area is caused by a car accident? I haven't had more headaches than normal (actually, now that I think of it, I haven't had any headaches since either accident! odd...), but I've had a constant muscle pain in the left side of my neck since about 5 days after the first accident. It hasn't moved to other areas, like with a migrane, and most of the time, it's not that bad. Sometimes, I go to bed with a hot-rice-pad on it, but only if it's worse than usual. I think it's about time for a physical anyway--I should get an appointment booked.

 

I'm just worried because my mom has been suffering from wiplash injuries for 30 years (or so), and I don't want to go through that much chronic pain.

Any insight?

~Jo

[Homesteader]

My cousin had this after a wreck once. It turned out he had tensed his muscles when he saw the car coming at him. His strain/ache disappeared after a few days. Hopefully, this might be your problem too.

[gardnmom]

You should very definately have a checkup and talk to your Dr. about it.There may be some thing your can do to help relax those muscles. Try this, allow your chin to slowly lower toward your chest, very slowly, then slowly lean it to the left, and very gradualy push it toward the rear and on around to the front, if it is just very tense it should begin to relax. Just make sure you do it slowly so you do not pull any muscles in the doing. You can do that 2 or 3 times.

[Daisygirl]

I would go and have it checked out right away...if you wait to long after the accident, they'll say that something else might have caused it. Even a minor accident can have traumatic effects on the body. We didn't even hit the car that crossed into our lane of traffic when I received my bi-lateral whiplash. I didn't connect it with the "incident" because we didn't hit anything. I had braced my self with the handle above the door and the other hand on my son in the carseat in the back. So, instead of a normal front to back whiplash, mine is side to side. That's been about ten years ago and I take pain meds every day just to get through the day. Arthritis is setting into the area and that only makes it worse. So, don't take a chance, go and get it checked out now. IMHO

[logcabinmama]

By all means get it checked out.

 

I believe in chiropractors and I would go there first. Be sure to tell what happened and I'm sure you can get help.

 

 

 

[motherearth]

What Snowmom says.

[Guest Guest]

Thanks for the advise everyone! The pain is actually gone today (figures the moment I mention it, it will go away!). I do still need to go to my doctor though, and I'll mention it then. I know for sure it wasn't the second accident, becuase I was having the pain a couple of days before that.

~Jo

[jillg]

I agree with Snowmom, check with a chiropractor. Also a Massage Therapist (bet nobody knew I would suggest that! ) might know how to help with whiplash. We learned methods to treat it, but all schools are different. So find one who has been trained in injuries, and they can help you. Best of luck.

 

BTW, our A&P instructor told us the car accidents that looked the worst, usually didn't cause the serious injury that the accidents that looked like minor fender benders did.