Controlling Back Pain With Chiropractic Care

Posted on: 22 September 2016

Residual back and neck pain after a car accident can be very difficult to deal with. The neck and back are core players in your ability to move easily. If one or both of these is sidelined, you could be out of commission as well. Chiropractic treatment can be effective for the pain, and in order to make it as effective as possible and not waste time, you have to do a little work.

Specify Symptoms -- From Both Before and After the Accident

Give the chiropractor a list of all the symptoms you've had with as much detail as possible. This goes not only for all the pain you've had as a result of the accident, but any back or neck problems you had before that. If the chiropractor knows about the accident, he or she will treat you as if the accident's effects on your body are the main things causing problems. However, if you had back or neck problems before the accident, those could complicate your injury treatment.

Note that if you have scoliosis, you should get a spine specialist's OK to see a chiropractor. The effects of chiropractic treatment on scoliosis (both as a treatment for the condition and as a pain treatment not targeting the scoliosis itself) are not well known, though there are anecdotal reports of additional problems occurring after treatments. Chiropractic treatment is in general relatively safe; it's just that, with this specific condition, there could be unknown factors interfering with the chiropractic work.

Double-Check Experience

Verify that the DC (Doctor of Chiropractic) that you are seeing has experience treating pain that was the result of an injury. Back and neck pain isn't one lone condition -- because the causes are so numerous, the treatments can vary from person to person and from cause to cause. So not only do you want someone who has a lot of chiropractic experience overall, but you want to see someone who has dealt with your particular situation in the past.

Send Copies of X-Rays and Test Results to the Office

Chiropractors aren't magicians (though it can feel that way after a treatment sometimes), and they can't magically deduce everything wrong with you. They do need to see any x-rays, MRI results, and other imaging test results in order to get the best picture possible of what's going on. If you don't send copies of these tests to the chiropractor, you may have to undergo the tests again at the chiropractor's office or a related lab. Save time -- just have your doctor's office send copies of those records to the DC.

Chiropractic treatment can be a great complementary treatment when you're recovering from an accident. You can talk to the office staff to see if there are any other things you can do to help make the treatment as good as possible. Contact a personal injury chiropractor for more information.