Three Things That Have To Happen After A Car Accident And Before Chiropractic Care

When you have been in a pretty serious car accident, injuries to your neck and back often include spinal injuries. It is a good idea to get chiropractic care after you have received a car accident injury, but only after certain things have taken place. It is vital to follow these rules so that you are not accidentally and further injured by what the chiropractor will do to help you. Additionally, most chiropractors will not treat you until after you have done the following three things.

Make Sure You Have No Broken Vertebrae

Broken vertebrae are very serious. Many of the muscles in your back are attached to these vertebrae by tendons and ligaments. If the bones are broken, attempting to make adjustments to the spine and neck can cause more serious damage to the already broken bones. That is why the chiropractor will ask to see recent x-rays of your neck and spine, or request to take x-rays to verify that you do not have any broken vertebrae.

Let All of the Swelling Go Down

It is very difficult for a chiropractor to do adjustments on a spine that has a lot of surrounding swelling. The chiropractor cannot palpate through the swollen soft tissues to see what adjustments can and cannot be done. It will take a week or more after your accident for the swelling to go down, and then you can see the chiropractor to start treatment.

Wait until Most of the Pain Subsides

Since you will be on your back or side for the adjustments, the chiropractor wants to be sure that the adjustments will not cause you even more pain than what you are already feeling. It is one thing to be in some pain when you visit a chiropractor, and quite entirely another when you can barely move after an accident and want the chiropractor to fix things.

Talk to the Chiropractor

If you already have a chiropractor, talk to him/her about your recent accident. It may have had some negative effects on all of the work you recently had with your chiropractor. In that case, the chiropractor would have to do a new treatment plan to address any of the damage to your spine that the car accident caused. Then you would have to start a fresh round of treatments and adjustments that would not only treat the accident areas, but also support the spine and neck where things still look good.