Whiplash Injury & Pain Treatment

The Chiropractors at Mountain View Pain Center see whiplash injuries frequently, we pride ourselves on creating custom treatments to restore your good health in wellness using only the best chiropractic and rehabilitation treatments. Our location in Centennial, CO allows us to conveniently serve the surrounding areas including Denver, Lakewood, Parker, Littleton, Highlands Ranch, Cherry Hills, Lone Tree, and Green Wood Village.

Whiplash Treatment DenverWhiplash
When whiplash injuries occur the speed of the impact often has little correlation to the pain and symptoms. You may feel fine after a small impact in a car accident or during the normal participation of sports, sometimes symptoms of whiplash do not show up immediately. It is possible to be involved in a minor car accident and not know that you are suffering from whiplash until the next day. Many people wake up the next day feeling as though they had been in a major auto accident. For these reasons it is important that you see a doctor to make sure you are not injured.

What is Whiplash?
Whiplash is most commonly used to describe injuries suffered in a motor vehicle accident. Whiplash effects and the mechanism of injury are not reserved just for motor vehicle accidents. The sudden snapping motion of the unsupported head is what whiplash refers to. This is especially common in car accidents due to the fact that the seat belt holds the body in place while the head is forced into hyper flexion and extension.

Whiplash Treatment AuroraAs mentioned above whiplash does not only occur in car accidents, it can also take place during sports such as hockey and football. An example of the whiplash injury occurring in football would be when the quarterback is getting ready to throw and is hit by a defensive lineman forcing the head into hyperextension just like a car accident. In hockey the whiplash injury usually occurs when a skater is hit from behind, the problem in both sports is that even with all of the padding there is no protection that restricts head and neck movement. Because of this the head and neck are susceptible to whiplash injuries similar to those suffered in car accidents.

Whiplash is known by the technical term of cervical acceleration or deceleration injury, or for short CAD. Our necks have ligaments, musculature, nerves, intervertebral disc, arteries, vessels, as well as boney structures. Because of the complex structure of the neck there are many different ways for the whiplash injury to occur.

Causes of Whiplash

  • Forced Hypertension – hypertension refers to the bending of the neck backwards, which can cause many different injuries. The anterior scalenes and the SCM (sternocleiomastoid) are the muscles that are usually strained during this type of whiplash injury. Ligament damage may also occur during forced hypertension whiplash injuries.
  • Neurological Damage – During a whiplash injury the force of the brains impact on the side of the skull may damage the cortex or cerebellum. Forced hyper flexion can cause pressure on the brain resulting in a concussion.

Symptoms of Whiplash
The two most common types of whiplash injury symptoms are pain and limited motion of the cervical spine, also known as the neck. Other common symptoms of whiplash are headache, numbness, impaired neck movement, radiating pain into the arms, hands, and fingers, low back pain, vertigo, ringing in the ears, nausea, jaw pain, pain between shoulder blades, disc herniations, loss of motion, and more.

Whiplash Treatment & Rehabilitation
Mountain View Pain Center provides a series of treatments to help you on your path to recovery after a whiplash injury. First we take care to relieve pain and inflammation through cervical spine adjustments, electrotherapy, and soft tissue mobilization. This portion of treatment requires patients to take a break from physical activity and allow the body to rest.

Once the pain and inflammation involved with your whiplash injury are under control you will begin your rehabilitation. Your whiplash rehab will include exercises for your upper extremities and neck.

The treatments will be customized to meet the needs of your specific injury, the Mountain View Pain Center understands that there are many different ways that whiplash injuries can occur, and someone in a car accident will need different treatments that an athlete that suffered a sports injury.