Health Essential - Car Accident Injuries
Hey there. Dr. James Fedich here at Village Family Clinic. Tell you a little bit about car accidents today. So I actually got into chiropractic from a car accident. I was 13 years old. Hit really hard from the side in a car wreck. I couldn't play basketball. Couldn't play sports anymore, and a chiropractor got me back on track. So I'll tell you a little bit about car accidents. A lot of times in car accidents we're hit with quite a lot of force, it's not actually the speed of the vehicle, but the weight of it. So that whole weight of the vehicle, 4 or 5,000 pounds, gets transferred through your body, and most of it ends up impacting the spine. So one of the more common injuries, people often say whiplash. The technical name for that is a flexion extension injury. And this is our spine from the side here. Your neck has a normal curve here. This would be your skull and your throat here. But it's really called a flexion extension injury. So what'll happen when we get hit, the neck will go forward, then come back, and oftentimes hit the seat. That's a common whiplash injury. What'll happen is it'll tear these muscles in the back of the neck, tearing those muscles causing neck pain, spasm, headaches, all those kinds of things. It's actually a little more complex that a lot of the force comes through the thoracic or middle back spine here. It's called an S shaped injury. So the force will come up through here causing that to not only jerk that way, but push up as well. So the force will come through the back through here then causing the neck to go forward and backwards. We also see a lot of times lumbar disc injuries and lower back injuries. The same force in the upper back and neck going forward and backwards will come and hit the back and this shearing force can often injure the low back disc and nerves. So in New Jersey, it's a no fault state, which means that it doesn't matter who's at fault and they actually have been hurt in a car accident. Auto insurance will pay your claims at a 100% typically for chiropractic care. So it doesn't matter if your fault, the other fault, doesn't matter whose fault it is. You're going to get paid by the insurance company, and the insurance company will figure that all out later. So if you or anyone else has been injured in a car accident, it's very important to get these problems fixed. What'll happen if you don't fix these soft tissue or disc injuries when they first happen, will eventually start forming some scar tissue, and it just gets tighter and tighter and tighter. And eventually, it'll get kind of stuck that way. So it's really important. If you already know these muscle fibers should smoothly move back and forth. When they're torn, they start wrapping all up and forming scar tissue and pulling in there. So it's really important. If you already know someone that's been involved in the car, see if they're spine checked by a chiropractor, who knows how to handle your auto insurance claims, and his billing staff knows how to get you the care that you need. So if you already know someone that's been in a car accident, give us a call at (908) 813-8200.
