Understanding Whiplash

The first thing to understand is that you may have the symptoms of a whiplash injury without having tissue damage. The pain, weakness of the neck, or dizziness of a whiplash injury often result entirely from muscle-spasms -- spasms that can usually be ended fairly quickly with the right methods. If symptoms have persisted long after tissue should have healed (according to your doctor), you probably have muscular spasticity.

That said, let me explain some things about whiplash injuries. At the time of your accident, muscles in your neck went into contraction to protect you against injury. When your head and neck were suddenly and violently thrown back and forth, a protective reflex, called the "stretch reflex" (or myotatic reflex, the clinical term) tightened the muscles of the neck to prevent excessive motion, which might otherwise have fractured your neck and damaged your spinal cord. So, those muscular contractions braced you quickly and automatically to protect you.

In the process, the incident galvanized your whole neuromuscular system into a heightened state of arousal; the shock of the incident created a vivid impression of an emergency situation in you -- a shock to your system. Shocks to the system tend to make lasting impressions on memory. Even though the incident was momentary, the memory persisted, and along with it, the protective, reflexive reaction. Suddenly a tension habit was formed.

Within minutes, in many cases of whiplash injury, neck muscles are fatigued and sore. That soreness, felt as neck pain, may have convinced you that you were injured, leading you to guard against head movement to prevent further pain. Guarding leads to further tension, tension leads to pain, and pain leads to a diagnosis of a whiplash injury.

Tension also leads to muscle fatigue, and muscle fatigue feels like muscle weakness.

As incidents of injury usually come from one side or the other, muscles are affected unequally. Unequal muscular tension (more tension on one side than the other) moves vertebrae more to one side: spinal misalignment. Loss of spinal alignment leads to distorted head movement and to unbalanced head position. The combination of distorted head movement and unbalanced head position send distorted sensations from the balance centers of the inner ears to the balance centers of the brain. You might feel dizzy, tight, and sore -- all from the shock of an injury causing muscles to tighten.

The same muscular tension also pulls the vertebrae of your neck closer together, making your neck shorter, thicker, and stiffer. Pressure on the discs increases, sometimes leading to disc bulges, disc degeneration and sometimes, to pinched nerves, with pain and numbness down the arms, possibly into the hands.

Bode Chiropractic has been working with whiplash victimsfor the last 12 years in the Tampa Bay area, and has earned a reputation as one of the leading doctors treating this condition. By reducing inflamation, incorporating integrative therapies, and boosting the body's ability to heal, you can be sure Bode Chiropractic is the best place to eliminate your pain and rehabilitate your injuries.

Go to Dr Garrett Bode's website http://www.bodespinalcenter.com/ or see our latest press release (Click Here). [Chiropractor oldsmar], Chiropractic Tampa, 33635, Chiropractors Tampa, Bode Chiropractic Accident & Wellness Center, Oldsmar, 33635, Neck Pain, Low Back Pain, Automobile Accidents, Headaches. Link Link http://fl.local.yahoo.biz/chiropractortampa/