The nervous system is crucial to the body’s functions. When nerves are not functioning properly, they can cause pain, numbness, and other unpleasant symptoms that affect your life. Nerves are responsible for our movements, breathing, eating, talking and more. One common reason why people suffer from nerve pain is car accident injuries.
There are three types of nerves in the body. The first type is autonomic nerves, which control the body’s involuntary functions such as digestion and heart rate. The second type is sensory nerves, which are in charge of relaying information to the brain and spinal cord from the muscles and skin. Lastly are motor nerves, which control a person’s movements by sending signals from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles.
Aside from nerve pain, nerve damage can cause other symptoms. Some of them include tingling, stabbing pain, burning sensations, numbness, muscle weakness, anxiety, depression, lightheadedness, twitching, excessive sweating, limited range-of-motion, loss of feeling or movement in certain areas, poor balance, slow reflexes, migraines and headaches, and even paralysis in extreme cases. As you can see, people suffering from nerve pain can experience a variety of other symptoms. Take note of these symptoms if you are experiencing them so that you can inform your healthcare provider.
If someone was in a car accident and was injured, in many cases it’s very clear. Open wounds, broken bones, and bleeding are all obviously identifiable. However, other types of injuries such as traumatic brain injuries and nerve damage may not be diagnosed until later. It’s possible that a person in a car accident could not start experiencing the worst of their symptoms until a few days or weeks after the accident happened. Prompt treatment is helpful in preventing nerve injuries from being permanent. Although nerves are able to repair themselves, it can take a long time for them to do so.
The human body has countless nerves, both large and tiny. Being involved in a car accident can cause a person’s nerves to be injured from tears, pinching, compression, or severing. There are strong forces involved in car accidents, which can easily crush a human body or contort it out of its natural limits. Physical trauma can crush or cut nerves. Even if a person breaks or dislocates a bone in a car accident, this can put strain on nerves and lead to pain and other symptoms. Car accidents can cause nerve injuries in various ways. Flying debris or broken glass in the vehicle could slice you, you could slam into the dashboard, window, headrest, or steering wheel, you could be thrown from the vehicle, you could suffer crushing damage from an airbag or seatbelt, or something else.
Many car accident victims that suffer nerve damage do not realize right away. They may think that the pain and other symptoms they are experiencing are not out of the ordinary. As mentioned before, the fact that nerve injuries may not be as obvious as other types of injuries means that people delay getting the medical treatment they need. Some types of serious serve injuries may not cause any pain, which can make them harder to identify. The sooner that people get treatment for nerve damage, the better the outcome will be.
One of the common types of nerve damage that people suffer from car accidents is peripheral neuropathy. Peripheral nerves are the ones that aren’t in the brain or spinal cord. When nerves are damaged, such as from trauma in a car accident, they aren’t able to carry out their functions. Peripheral nerves send information from the brain and spinal cord to other parts of the body. When they are injured, it can cause pain, numbness, tingling, and weakness. Treatment is important to avoid suffering from long-term symptoms.
Another type of nerve damage that can occur because of car accidents is neurotmesis. This happens when a nerve gets cut or completely severed. Neurotmesis can cause sensory and motor problems within a certain area and affect the skin, muscles, and other nerves. A person could lose the sensation of pain in the area, or the ability to sweat. There isn’t a specific cure for this type of nerve damage, but it may improve over time. Some treatments have been found to help manage this condition and reduce pain levels.
One of the most common types of nerve pain that people suffer after being in a car accident is sciatica. This is a shooting pain that goes down the sciatic nerve from the lower back, into the butt, and down one or both of a person’s legs. This pain is commonly caused by nerve compression.
At Byers Chiropractic and Massage: Car Accident Urgent Care, we frequently help people with car accident injuries recover. Chiropractic treatment aims to help problems in the musculoskeletal system. This includes the spine, bones, muscles, and nerves. Our team will listen to the symptoms you are experiencing and then identify the source of your pain. In many cases that we handle, the nerve pain is caused by an underlying condition such as a herniated disc.
Chiropractic adjustments realign a person’s spine so that it’s in its proper positioning. This keeps the vertebrae from putting stress on surrounding tissues. Spine adjustments can free nerves that were being pinched or pulled. Many patients find that chiropractic treatment soothes nerve pain, and reduces other symptoms such as numbness, tingling, weakness, and loss of feeling. There are many benefits to receiving chiropractic care after being in a car accident.
Byers Chiropractic and Massage: Car Accident Urgent Care also offers massage therapy. This is beneficial in soothing inflamed nerves that could be causing pain. It can also loosen up the muscles and take pressure off of nerves that are compressed or pinched. Massage can improve blood flow in injured areas as well, aiding in healing. Some nerve pain is also caused by stress, and massage is great at helping people relax.
If you were in a car accident and are now suffering from pain, Byers Chiropractic and Massage: Car Accident Urgent Care is happy to meet with you to go over your health history and discuss treatment options. With massage therapy and chiropractic adjustments, you can experience relief from your symptoms and look forward to a better tomorrow.
