Whiplash Injury: Reducing The Pain

Understanding The Nature Of A Whiplash Injury

The first stage is to explore what a whiplash injury is. A whiplash injury usually happens when your vehicle is stationary or in slow moving traffic. A vehicle from behind collides with your vehicle which causes your body to violently move backwards and forwards. It is this period of violent movement that causes your neck muscles to move far beyond their usual comfort zone. This over stretching leads to the neck, upper back and shoulder pains which are the common pains associated with whiplash. Whilst many people believe that quite a fast and severed collision is usually required to cause a whiplash injury, the reality is that someone can suffer a whiplash injury even in a very low speed accident.

What Is The First Action You Can Take? We have all heard of the expression, "Prevention is better than cure". This saying applies to whiplash as it does to any other injury, so you can take some positive action even before you are involved in a car accident. This action could completely prevent or reduce the impact of the whiplash injury, and it is a simple two minute piece of action; adjust your car heardrest to its correct position. The correct positioning of the car head rest will minimise the impact of any collision and reduce the chance and the extent of any whiplash injury. The simple test for your headrest is that the top of it should be no higher than the top of your head but at least as high as the level of your eyes.

By taking the action of adjusting your car headrest, it has the best prospects of avoiding a whiplash injury for you.

What If I Am Involved In A Car Accident? If you are unfortunate enought to be involved in a collision in a car and believe that you have suffered a whiplash injury, the first pain you are likely to experience willbe to the neck, back and shoulder. The first action you should take is to attend your local Accident & Emergency Department or your General Practitioner. They will carry out a full assessment of your injury to ensure that you have not sustained a more serious injury than a straightforward whiplash injury. This will put your mind at rest and reassure you that in most cases you can make a complete recovery.

Once you have attended your initial assessment, if any of your symptoms continue you should return for further assessment from your GP or the Accident & Emergency Department.

What Next? If you have suffered a severe injury you may be advised to attend for physiotherapy or chiropractic treatment which can help to speed up your recovery from the injury. If you are still experiencing neck and shoulder pain one or two weeks after your accident, you should ask for a further assessment. If there is a long waiting list for treatment you can consider attending privately. If you subsequently pursue a claim for compensation for your whiplash injury then the cost of this treatment, if it is reasonable in relation to the injury, can be recovered by the solicitor acting for you with your whiplash compensation claim. Treatment is one of the best ways of minimising the extent of your whiplash injury.

The other action you can take is to ensure that you keep moving. Whereas a neck collar used to be the usual treatment method, this is no longer the case and usually keeping the neck moving is prescribed.

Finally, seek advice from an experienced whiplash solicitor to see if you can make a claim for compensation. The compensation cannot take away the pain, but it can recover the cost of any private treatment and allow you to finally close the door on the whiplash injury.