Injuries to your neck and back can be scary and stressful because of how much they affect the rest of your body. When you’ve been in a car accident and are experiencing serious pain and discomfort, you want to make sure you are getting treatment for whiplash from a doctor you can trust. You might wonder why you should choose a good chiropractor instead of a medical doctor for your care. In truth, chiropractors approach whiplash and other injuries and ailments from a natural, non-invasive perspective to help you experience safe, effective healing.
Education and Experience for Chiropractors
While chiropractors are not medical doctors, they are medical professionals who treat many of the same illnesses and injuries. Chiropractors receive a Doctor of Chiropractic from accredited programs that require extensive education and experience in the field. Students in chiropractic school spend around four years learning about anatomy, physiology, the nervous system, and more just like medical doctors do. Students of chiropractic also participate in clinicals where they continue to learn about and practice chiropractic care in a variety of situations.
Once a chiropractor has earned their Doctor of Chiropractic, they must seek certification from the state in order to start practicing. Chiropractic care focuses on your whole body and how misalignments can disrupt healthy functioning and lead to illness and injury. Goals of chiropractic care include restoring proper posture and helping your brain to communicate effectively with the rest of your body.
Traditional vs Chiropractic Treatment
Traditional medical doctors and surgeons tend to focus on medications to help manage your car accident injury like whiplash pain and believe that injections and surgeries are the best ways to treat your injury. Instead, chiropractors focus on the root cause of your pain and discomfort so you can experience full healing and recovery. Chiropractors use minimally to completely non-invasive techniques and do not prescribe medications that can actually mask your symptoms or cause uncomfortable side effects.
It is important to find the root cause of your pain and other symptoms in order to make sure they don’t come back again. Pain medications can actually temporarily hide symptoms and then once you stop taking them you notice they haven’t gone away after all. Big surgeries can add serious time to your recovery and can sometimes have complications. Instead, chiropractors focus on finding the root cause of your pain and fixing the issue so your symptoms naturally disappear. When your chiropractor helps restore the body’s natural functioning through identifying and resolving misalignments, your body is actually able to help heal itself.
Chiropractic Treatment for Whiplash
Whiplash is a serious injury that can cause pain on your neck, back, muscles, and even nerves, and can last for weeks and even months. You want a doctor who won’t try to rush to fix your symptoms and instead help you heal naturally and fully. Chiropractors may use non-invasive diagnostic imaging tools like X-rays to help get a better picture of how your body was affected by the car accident. X-rays and manual assessments will help your chiropractor identify any misalignments in your spine, like vertebrae or discs that may have gotten jostled out of place during the accident. Chiropractic adjustments are gentle and non-invasive ways to help restore your vertebrae and discs to their proper positioning. When your spine is properly aligned it allows your brain to communicate effectively to the rest of your body without any interference.
Chiropractors don’t just work on your spine! A huge part of chiropractic treatment for whiplash may include helping soothe the pain in your nearby muscles that support your neck and back. When the accident occurred, your neck muscles were likely strained out of their normal range of motion. When your muscles are sore and damaged, they have a hard time doing their job of effectively supporting your spine. Chiropractors may use hot and cold therapies, massage therapy, and other techniques to stimulate healthy blood flow in your muscles and encourage healing.
You might experience nerve pain like tingling and numbness when you have a whiplash injury. This can happen because those vertebrae and discs that are out of place may put pressure on nearby nerves, causing what is commonly referred to as a pinched nerve. When a chiropractor gently adjusts and realigns your spine it can take pressure off of nerves that were sending out these tingling messages. Restoring proper functioning to your nervous system allows your nerves to communicate effectively all the way to your fingers and toes.
Consider picking a good chiropractor to help you fully recover from whiplash and function healthier in the future. The team at AICA Orthopedics in Tucker have diagnostic imaging tools like X-rays on-site and can work with you to develop a plan of treatment for whiplash and to help you experience true healing.