It's not unsurprising for severe accidents to cause injury, but even minor accidents can cause significant pain and damage.
Even after what seems to be a harmless fender bender, soft tissue injuries and back injuries, in particular, are very common.
The sudden and jarring impact caused by motor vehicle accidents can easily cause severe injury to your back.
And sometimes, the symptoms of these injuries aren't noticed until hours, days, or weeks after the accident.
However, if you don't receive prompt medical treatment for back injuries and other common injuries after car accidents, you can suffer from chronic pain and other complications.
So, how should you treat back pain after a car accident?
We'll explore that question and more in the article below.
Table of Contents
- What Causes Back Injuries In Auto Accidents?
- Back Injury Symptoms After Vehicle Collisions
- Common Types of Back Injuries
- Treat Back Pain After a Car Accident
- Chiropractic Care
- Car Wreck Doctor
What Causes Back Injuries In Auto Accidents?
When a negligent driver hits your car during an auto accident, your body is still moving until something stops it.
Hopefully, it's your seatbelt, but it could also be your steering wheel, dashboard, or even your windshield that abruptly halt your body's movement.
The worst scenario is that your body finally stops when it hits the ground.
The violent motion caused by the collision can sprain, fracture, and severely injure numerous body parts.
The areas around your neck, spinal cord, and back are particularly vulnerable.
Back injuries, neck injuries, and various other injuries are often noticed in head-on, rear, and side-impact collisions, but even minor incidents can impact your back and mobility.
Automobile Accidents That Are Responsible For Back Injuries
There are various accidents that can cause intense pain in your back. Some of the most common car accidents that are:
Head-On Collisions: The impact of these motor vehicle accidents can cause damage in your spinal column. This occurs when two vehicles collide from the front, creating enough force to cause stiff muscles, neck pain, and other soft tissue injuries.
Rear-End Collisions: This accident happens when a car hits the rear bumper of a car in front of them. It is a common cause for injuries like whiplash, broken bones, and damaged nerves to name a few.
Side-Impact Collisions: A side-impact vehicle accident is when the side of the vehicle is impacted the most. This can happen by getting sideswiped or driving too close to a car on the interstate or street. These collisions can cause the same type of injuries as other motor vehicle accidents like spinal cord injuries, concussions, and lacerations.
Back Injury Symptoms After Vehicle Collisions
Common car accident injuries leave you feeling sore all over, making it difficult to determine if your injury is back-related.
Since your spine includes your cervical spine and travels down your back to your lumbar spine, the pain you experience can radiate to many different areas.
Back pain after your car accident can be the result of inflammation, spinal fracture, or compressed nerves.
The symptoms you experience can range from manageable discomfort to a complete inability to perform an everyday task.
Back injury symptoms you may experience after a car accident are:
- Back Stiffness: Many people suffer from loss of flexibility after a car accident because their muscles tense up to protect their bodies. This stiffness may subside shortly after the accident or could persist for days or weeks without medical care.
- Sharp pain: After an accident, even typical movements like getting out of bed or standing up after sitting for a while can cause sharp acute pain in your back.
- Pain and discomfort walking or standing: Any physical activity can become uncomfortable if you have a back injury. For example, you may feel a throbbing or mild pain when performing daily tasks.
- Muscle spasms: Your back muscle may repeatedly twitch, knot, or become tender on the outside of your body. Muscle spasms can become debilitating.
- Burning pain: Burning sensations may move down your back and buttocks through the back of one or both legs. This pain could be a mild ache that quickly goes away or a burning pain that lasts for days.
- Muscle Weakness: Experiencing nerve damage from any spinal injury in any accident can cause periodical muscle weakness in your limbs, neck, and back.
- Numbness or tingling: Your spinal cord connects to your extremities, so tense muscles may pinch nerves leading to sensations of tingling or numbness in your legs, feet, arms, or hands.
Headaches, dizziness, or disorientation may also occur from cervical vertebrae injuries from whiplash.
A Facet joint injury can cause neck or shoulder pain. Facet joint injuries are a common type of injury that can occur after a vehicle collision. The facet joints, also known as zygapophyseal joints, are located on either side of the spine and help to stabilize the vertebrae. When these joints are injured, they can cause significant pain and discomfort in the neck or shoulders.
Since there is such a range of symptoms, you should note how you feel, what activities increase your pain, how often it occurs, and seek medical care right away to prevent permanent damage from occurring.
Common Types of Back Injuries
Your spine is an essential part of the movement in your everyday life and many functions of your body.
Back and spinal injuries can affect your overall quality of life, and car accidents can lead to various back injuries.
Back fractures, disc injuries, and severe sprains can occur from car accidents. These injuries can be excruciating, causing stretching or tearing of muscles, ligaments, or back tendons.
They may leave you with a limited range of motion, swelling, bruising, extreme tenderness, and a lack of ability to perform even the simplest of daily tasks.
A herniated disc occurs when your spinal discs between the vertebrae of the spine are displaced.
A disc herniation will put pressure on the surrounding nerves that can cause back pain or numbness of your extremities.
All spinal cord injuries are concerning and need examining as soon as possible so you can start your road to recovery.
Treat Back Pain After a Car Accident
There are several effective treatments you can use while managing your back pain after an auto accident.
The first step of your recovery process is seeking medical attention.
Once you've visited a doctor and they've given you the go-ahead, you can try these pain management tips to reduce your back pain and speed up your recovery process.
Want more information about dealing with a traumatic car accident? Read our blog post: "What to Do After a Car Accident? | 8 Top Post Accident Tips (English- United States)"
Rest, Ice, and Heat
Rest is vital in the healing process. Just be sure you don't rest too much.
Take some time off work to ensure you aren't sitting at a desk or on your feet all day.
Ice and heat will also help to reduce back pain.
It would be best to start with ice to make sure any swelling is gone and then transition to heat.
You can apply ice packs to your back for 15 minutes at a time to the injured area to reduce swelling.
Applying heat right away can increase swelling and bruising and extend your recovery time.
Heat will soothe tense muscles that tighten up as you struggle to manage your pain.
You'll naturally want to avoid moving your back which can lead to tense and rigid muscles.
Applying a hot water bottle to the injured area can help to improve blood flow, reduce tension, and provide pain relief.
Gentle Exercise
Again, typical injuries to your back can leave you feeling like you shouldn't move at all.
However, gentle exercise can help reduce your back pain after a collision.
Simple activities like walking around the block a few times a day will help you retain your muscle strength.
It will also improve blood flow to knotted and tense muscles in spine injuries.
It's important to retain muscle strength, especially with back injuries, as strong muscles support your spine to reduce long-term back pain.
Massage Therapy
In addition to massage, a massage therapist can show you a variety of simple exercises you can complete at home daily.
These stretches and exercises will keep you flexible and build your muscle strength to support the injured area.
Physical therapy treatments can also include manual therapies.
These reduce tension and stimulate circulation to certain areas.
Chiropractic Care
Chiropractic care is often considered the best solution for back pain and many other types of motor vehicle traffic injuries.
Chiropractic care can help people who have had their back injured in car accidents in various ways.
With chiropractic treatments, you will recover safely and faster than traditional treatments such as invasive surgery or pain medication.
Chiropractors will heal the source of your back injury without just masking the symptoms.
Chiropractic care does not include the use of hard pain drugs, so you can rest assured knowing that you are getting better without the risk of addiction or fear that their pain is only being masked.
Car Wreck Doctor
If you are suffering from back pain after a car accident, it's in your best interest to visit a car accident doctor right away.
Car Wreck Doctor connects accident victims with professional accident chiropractors that can help you if you're suffering from back pain and injuries after your crash.
They will also refer you to experienced personal injury, or accident lawyers on our legal team that can help you win your personal injury claim for financial recovery of loss wages like medical bills,
Car Wreck doctor will help injured victims through the entire process focused on recovering from an auto accident injury.
They will find professionals who will help you recover after suffering a back injury from an auto accident.
Contact Car Wreck Doctor today by clicking the button below.
