Whiplash is an injury to the soft tissues that support your head and neck, and it’s typically the result of a violent backward and forward movement of your head. This motion is common in rear end car accidents or if you take an uncomfortable ride on a shaky roller coaster, and while it typically doesn’t involve a vertebral fracture, it’s immensely important that you are proactive in treating this tissue damage. Below, we explain why whiplash injuries need to be treated proactively, and we share some of the most common treatment techniques.
Don’t Ignore Whiplash Symptoms
As we mentioned above, whiplash involves stretching and tearing of the supportive soft tissues in your neck. While these tissues can undergo some healing with rest alone, these muscles, ligaments and tendons can only experience a certain amount of healing through passive techniques. In other words, if you just rely on rest and medications to manage your symptoms, there’s a decent chance that symptoms will linger. Even if symptoms do resolve, these supportive tissues will be weaker than they were prior to the injury.
That may not seem like a big deal, but it can lead to more discomfort down the road. Less support for your head and neck can lead to pain more quickly if you have poor posture or have to sit at a desk all day for work. Additionally, you may be at an increased risk for a subsequent injury because these tissues can’t comfortably handle stress and strain as easily.
So if you want to reduce the risk of lingering symptoms or an increased likelihood of injury down the road, you need to proactively work to strengthen these injured tissues during your recovery period. But what are the best ways to do that? Your spine specialist will be able to provide you with some individualized advice, but oftentimes a proactive approach to whiplash involves a combination of the following techniques:
- Physical Therapy – Once you are cleared for physical therapy, you’ll want to carefully dive into a routine. Physical therapy will likely be the most effective treatment for strengthening these tissues because it targets the specific areas of your neck that have been affected by the whiplash injury. Your doctor can set you up with a PT routine, or they can refer you to a physical therapist that can develop some in-person and home-based therapy exercises that can strengthen these injured tissues so that they can return to a pre-injury level of strength and function.
- Controlled Range Of Motion Exercise – While these movements will likely be included in your physical therapy routine, we wanted to dive deeper into the importance of controlled range of motion exercises. One of the biggest problems associated with soft tissue damage during a whiplash injury is the fact that it can cause limited mobility and flexibility in the neck. If you can’t comfortably move your neck from side to side, a number of simple movements are going to cause discomfort. You’ll want to work to slowly expand your range of motion with gentle stretches until you’ve regained your normal flexibility. Again, this comfortable range of motion won’t just come back on its own, you have to work to reestablish it after tissue damage.
- Limited Bracing – Bracing is an incredibly common treatment after a whiplash injury because it helps to protect against excess movement and additional damage. However, your spine specialist won’t want you to wear the brace for weeks on end, because eventually all this protection can begin to have the opposite effect and cause muscle atrophy. The soft tissues eventually need to be forced to work on their own in order to establish strength and mobility, so don’t expect that the brace will allow full healing to occur on its own. Bracing is best when damage is recent, and over time it can become a crutch that limits your recovery, so work to ditch it as soon as safely possible.
- Heat And Ice – Heat and ice can also help to combat any discomfort that you’re experiencing in your neck after a whiplash injury. Ice and cold packs can limit swelling in the area, while heat can promote improved blood flow, ensuring injured tissues have access to healthy, oxygenated blood. Using these as needed before or after active techniques to make physical therapy or your recovery period more comfortable.
A relatively minor whiplash injury can lead to chronic neck pain if not cared for properly, so don’t leave your recovery up to chance. Instead, connect with Dr. Sinicropi and the team at The Midwest Spine & Brain Institute to ensure your recovery remains on the right track. For more information, or for help with a different spinal issue, reach out to our team today at (651) 430-3800.