Living a Post-Whiplash Life
The baby’s crying, the bills are piling up, your boss told you that you need to improve your work performance, and your pain from that car accident isn’t helping your stress. The one thing that could make your life more stressful is increasing pain, so you figure you’ll just ice it and wait for the pain to go away on its own.
Well, ice is a great home remedy to all kinds of aches and pains, but it can only do so much to help restore the body to its natural state. We all know ice reduces swelling, and we’ve probably all iced a swollen elbow or knee at some point. Ice has the same effect on the inside of us as it does the outside of us—it reduces swelling.
So, ice will help reduce pain at times caused by any swelling from that accident. But the force of that car accident may have likely caused the top two vertebrae in your neck, also called your upper cervical vertebrae, to curve itself into a momentary S like position.
Fibromyalgia and your Unaligned Neck
Now, even though that S position in your neck only lasted for a split second, it left lasting damage, and you don’t want to ignore that lasting damage. That hyperextension of your upper cervical spine (known as whiplash) could have caused damage to your spinal canal, which is the space in your vertebrae through which your spinal cord passes, and could lead to further damage.
If that’s the case, and you allow that whiplash to go untreated, it could lead to Fibromyalgia or other chronic pain syndromes. That pain could further manifest itself as stiffness or burning in your neck, shoulders, lower back, hip, or elsewhere. But the symptoms may not stop there. It could cause sleepless nights, irritability, or more.
Right now, if you are suffering from any pain from a car accident (whether it was last week, last month, last year or last decade), that may have caused whiplash, the best thing you can do is to contact an upper cervical chiropractor. They will examine your upper neck vertebrae for any misalignments that may be the underlying cause of your pain and make any necessary adjustments to realign the top two vertebrae in your neck. The realignment of the upper neck will take pressure off the brain stem is likely leading to changes in the blood, cerebral spinal fluid and nerve flow to from and through your brain. Realigning the upper neck may be the first step necessary in finally getting well.
To find an upper cervical specialist in your area go to http://www.NUCCA.org/ or if you are in the Chicago, Illinois area click the button below to schedule a consultation:
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Dr. Young Chung of NUCCA Wellness Clinic of Chicago, with a location in Chicago and a 2nd location in Wheeling is an Upper Cervical Specialist trained by the National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association (NUCCA). His upper cervical clinic also serves Northbrook, Long Grove, Lincolnshire, Buffalo Grove and Vernon Hills. He is uniquely trained to correct problems in the upper cervical spine (upper neck). This vital area is intimately connected to the central nervous system and problems in this area have been shown to be an underlying cause of a variety of different health problems, including migraines and other headaches, whiplash injuries, post-concussion syndrome. This type of care has also shown benefits for athletic performance and pregnancy outcomes. More information can be found on our website at http://www.NUCCAwellnessChicago.com/
