Recovering from Auto Injuries

During a rear end collision, a tremendous strain is placed on the joints of the spine. These strains can result in ligament and disc injury and chronic pain. In this video, we show what happens to your neck during a crash, and how chiropractic can help you recover.

Ligament Injury After Whiplash

Ligaments are fibrous bands of tissue that hold the bones of your body together. The ligaments of the spine are there to keep the bones of spine in alignment.

During an auto collision, the head moves very rapidly in relation to the torso, and this rapid motion results in shear forces occuring between the joints of the spine. The animation on the right shows the motion that the vertebrae experience, and how the ligaments can be stretched or torn. The scientific literature has shown over and over that whiplash can result in ligament injury.

Muscle Injury After Whiplash

The muscles play an interesting role in the neck and especially in whiplash injury. The neck muscles are responsible for keeping the head up and maintaining posture.

The muscles of the neck can be exposed to dramatic stretch forces during an auto collision, as we can see in the movie to the right. As the torso is moved forward during the crash, the head rotates backward, stretching the large muscles in the front of the neck.

Immediately after a crash, many patients will complain of neck muscle pain, and this is often from this stretching motion. Unfortunately, scar tissue can develop in these muscles leading to other problems. Studies have found that this scar tissue can affect the nerves of the neck, leading to conditions like thoracic outlet syndrome.

Neck muscle pain can also be due to injury to the ligaments or disc in the spine.

Neck muscle injury from whiplash can also result in shoulder pain.

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