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leg injury pain relief

Arm & Leg Injury Pain Relief with Chiropractic

As discussed in the second blog of this series, soft tissue injuries  can effect tendons, ligaments, muscles, skin, blood vessels, fat, and connective tissues. Many of the patients we treat in our injury and auto accident clinic in Frisco, have found relief from their arm and leg injury pain with chiropractic treatment and modalities.

Types of Injuries

A car accident, whether minor or severe, can affect your body in many ways. Pain can be immediate, or it may be subtle. Sometimes the pain gradually increases over time. Other times it wanes and then gets worse again. Some common arm and leg injuries we have seen in our clinic include the following:

  • Shoulder impingement 
  • Joint dislocation of shoulder or elbow
  • Strains or sprains of the shoulder muscles
  • Patella (knee cap) compression or dislocation 
  • Damaged cartilage in your knee

No matter the severity or how fast it appears, we all want pain relief.

How Chiropractic Care Can Help

As an accident and injury clinic in Frisco, we’ve seen a variety of complex injuries. No matter the injury, it’s important that a trained and licensed professional, experienced in providing arm and leg injury pain relief, evaluates you. A comprehensive evaluation is the best way to determine the source of your pain.

After the evaluation, a treatment plan will be designed specifically for the patient and their injury. We offer comprehensive treatment for pain relief. For example, ultrasound therapy helps with relaxing muscles and decreasing muscle spasms. Electrical stimulation enhances your body’s natural pain relief process. A gentle manipulation helps realign your joints. Hot packs increase oxygen in muscles which helps heal damaged tissue. Cold packs are useful in decreasing inflammation (swelling) in the tissues and reducing your pain.

Start Your Pain Relief Here

If you have suffered any type of injury including arm or leg injuries from a car accident and are seeking an accident and injury clinic in Frisco, Dallas, Richardson, or Plano, IRC Physical Therapy and Chiropractic can help. We have convenient hours Monday through Saturday and will handle everything through your insurance claim. Book your appointment by filling out the request here, or call (972) 232-2227 today! 

chest injuries from car accident leads to spinal pain

Chest Injuries from a Car Accident Can be Related to Spinal Trauma

Common chest injuries from a car accident are soreness, pain, and bruising, typically from a seatbelt. However, the chest pain some experience are the result of severe injury, like fractured ribs, require different treatment.

The rib cage is a part of the musculoskeletal system. It connects to the spine. Our accident and injury clinic in Plano is a sensible choice to ensure your spine is properly aligned, relieving muscle tension that may be causing your symptoms. 

Symptoms of Upper Back and Chest Pain

If a spinal column is misaligned, it could create a variety of symptoms that radiate around to the chest. Some of these symptoms include:

  • A sharp, almost shock-like pain
  • Dull achiness that felt in the chest, upper back, or even the shoulder
  • Noticeable pain when trying to take a breath
  • Tingling feeling in the chest
  • Rib pain
  • Stiffness
  • Fullness or pressure feeling in the chest

Treatment With Chiropractic

Chiropractic care involves more than just “cracking bones.” In fact, we don’t crack bones at all. However, what we do is adjust joints. Adjusting joints into proper alignment allows the patient’s body can function as designed. Our skilled chiropractors have decades of experience treating chest injuries related to car accidents. Many of these injuries are found to coincide with issues related to the spinal cord. Through a series of treatments (that may include gentle manipulations, ultrasound, hot/cold modalities, electrical stimulation, or traction) it is possible to get relief from your chest injury. Not all chest injuries (or bodies) are the same. After an initial evaluation at our accident and injury clinic in Plano, we’ll provide you with a diagnosis and a treatment plan specially designed to relieve your pain and discomfort.

Get Help With IRC Physical Therapy and Chiropractic

Chest injuries from a car accident could reveal a more serious problem. Don’t take your chances with an inexperienced chiropractic clinic. Contact your trusted accident and injury clinic in Plano today. Additionally, for your convenience, we have locations in Frisco, Richardson, and Dallas. Click here to schedule your appointment now, or call us at (972) 232-2227. 

common accident injuries

What Are the Most Common Injuries after an Accident?

As an accident and injury clinic in Dallas, we see many patients that have pain as the result of car accidents. Many of the injuries we see are similar. We’ve decided to do a multi-part blog series, to share with the most common accident injuries that we treat.  

Common Car Accident Injuries

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, almost 3 million people are injured in car accidents every year. Injuries resulting from accidents can range from very minor to permanent, life-altering injuries. 

Injuries are typically divided into one of two categories: penetrating injuries or impact injuries. As you can imagine, penetrating injuries occur when any foreign object punctures the body. For example, glass shards embedded in the skin, or any other object causing scrapes or lacerations. An impact injury is when a  body part slams against an object in the vehicle. Impact injuries cause both superficial and internal injuries, but do not penetrate the skin. 

The following list are more injuries we see in our accident and injury clinic in Dallas.

  1. Soft tissue injuries
  2. Chest contusions
  3. Arm and leg sprains and strains
  4. Various injuries to the back
  5. Whiplash (as discussed in a previous blog)
  6. Head trauma

Injuries vary in severity, and you may feel pain right away or not feel any pain for several days. As we go through this series, we will discuss the most common car accident injuries in further detail. In our next blog, we will talk specifically about soft tissue injuries. 

Call Us When You Need an Accident & Injury Clinic

If you or a loved one has been involved in a car accident, you want a highly skilled accident and injury clinic in Dallas who can help you recover. You can trust the team at IRC Physical Therapy and Chiropractic’s skilled providers for real pain relief. Book your appointment online by clicking here or call (972) 232-2227 today – we will work with your insurance. Need an office closer to your work or home? We also have locations in Frisco, Plano, and Richardson.

What is and how do you treat Whiplash?

Whiplash is a neck injury from a forceful back and forth movement of the neck

The main cause for a whiplash is usually from a motor vehicle collision but can also occur by other forms for example a fall.  A few of the symptoms that you can experience from a whiplash are neck pain, muscle spasms, stiffness, decrease of range of motion, headaches, fatigue, dizziness and even radiating symptoms. Radiating symptoms are when you begin to feel numbness and tingling into the arms and fingers. Some patients also experience more severe symptoms like blurred vision, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, memory loss, ringing in the ears, and depression.

After a motor vehicle collision, you should seek medical care and rule out fracture or ligamentous instability that could damage or worsen your symptoms and be life threatening. The forceful backward and forward motion can injure and damage, your bones in the spine, the discs that are in between the bones, ligaments, nerves, muscles and other tissues in the neck. There is not a specific recovery time frame and It is difficult to predict how long the recovery for a whiplash injury will take whether it is a few weeks, a few months, or years to recover. Some complication to your recovery could be age, previous trauma, and chronic neck pain that can play a big role in the recovery of a whiplash injury.

What do we do as chiropractors to treat whiplash?

We perform a very detailed exam that consist of the patients’ current range of motion, orthopedic exams, cranial nerve exam, sensory testing, motor testing, reflex testing, detecting muscle spasms and restrictions in the spine. After examining the patient, the doctor comes up with a proper diagnosis and requests the proper imaging. For a neck injury the doctor usually tends to send out a script for imaging whether it is an X-ray, CT, MRI of the cervical spine which is the neck. Once we receive the imaging and report we make sure the patient did not suffer from altitudinal ligamental tear or a fracture in the spine and we can begin conservative care. We begin by treating conservatively by applying electrical stimulation to the surrounding muscles. Electrical stimulation sends electrical pulses to the muscles through the skin to stimulate the injured muscles and help reduce pain. Electrical stem helps accelerate recovery and provides some relief of pain. Although Electrical stimulation is great it is not for everyone, patients with pacemakers or any kind of heart device and pregnant mothers should stay away from Electrical stimulation. Alongside with electrical stimulation we like to use ice to help reduce inflammation and heat to help relax muscles.  Another treatment is myofascial release.

What is myofascial release?

Myofascial release is a very safe and effective hands on technique pressure that is applied to connective tissues restrictions to help with pain and restore some motion.  As a chiropractor and being one of the main things we do we also provide chiropractic adjustments, also known as spinal manipulations to the cervical (neck) spine, thoracic (upper back) spine and lumbar (low back) spine. A chiropractor uses their hands, or a small instrument called an Activator to apply a controlled force to the spinal joint. The adjustment helps improve motion and physical function. Some patients that suffer from headaches symptoms after a motor vehicle collision seem to decrease after an adjustment. Once the patient is out of the acute phase, we introduce active therapy. For our active therapy we introduce the patient to different stretches and exercises. The stretches will help release the contracted muscles and help increase range of motion. We also teach exercises to help strengthened the weak muscles in the cervical spine and thoracic spine. Once we strengthened the muscles it helps with the natural curves that we have in our spine whether its is the lordotic curve in the neck which is known as the cervical spine or kyphotic curve in the upper back which is known as the thoracic spine. These curves should be maintained because many times after a motor vehicle collision the curves tend to reverse which can cause muscle spasms and pain. The way we maintain those curves are by strengthening the extensor muscles which are in the back of the neck and upper back. If we strengthened, then that helps with posture which will in the long term help the curves and take weight off of the neck muscles. Another problem we see with whiplash patients is forward head posture which puts a lot of weight on the muscles and ligament in the neck. After a whiplash the patient can also suffer from a sprain and strain in the neck. A sprain and strain is when the neck muscle and ligaments become overstretched like a rubber band and it takes time for those muscles and ligaments to return to its “normal” elasticity.

Why Choose IRC IRC Physical Therapy and Chiropractic Clinic?

We are committed as primary health care professionals to help our clients resume their lifelong pursuit of health, fitness, and well-being.

Knowledge

We at IRC Physical Therapy and Chiropractic Clinic take a goal-oriented approach to healing. Whatever your goals might be we want to help you achieve them

Availability

We’ll provide hands-on treatment in the office and education you can take home with you, enabling you to become an active participant in your recovery and future chiropractic health.

Trust

Our chiropractor's have a combined 120 years of clinical experience and a shared passion for helping our community stay active.

FOUR CONVENIENT LOCATIONS TO SERVE YOU

Frisco

Plano

Richardson

Dallas

IRC Clinic - What To Do After an Accident - Plano Chiropractor, Can I really get injured in a low speed accident?

Can I really get injured in a low speed accident?

Injuries from Low Impact Accidents

A low impact auto accident is generally defined as an incident that takes place at speeds less than 10 miles per hour (mph). This type of collision usually causes the least amount of damage to the vehicles involved. Body injuries can result from any accident and that includes ones that occur with vehicles going less than 10 mph. Soft tissue injuries are the most common problem for those involved in a low impact accident.
A motor vehicle accident that takes place at speeds between under 10 mph often brings about little visible damage to the cars involved. Sometimes due to the fact that minimal damage was done to vehicle the injuries to the people in the vehicles are overlooked. This does not mean that bodily injury did not occur to the passengers during the crash.
While an automobile is built to take a slow 5 to 10 mph crash that is not necessarily true for your body. In a low impact accident a person’s soft tissue can be damaged.The back and neck are the usual problem spots for soft tissue injuries. Soft tissue is basically a person’s ligaments, tendons and muscles. Soft tissue injuries are typically classified as contusions or bruises, sprains or strains. 
A contusion is an injury to the soft tissue caused by blunt force. This force produces pooling of blood around the injury causing discoloring of the skin. This is commonly is referred to as a bruise. Bruising can be found in different shapes and colors.
A sprain is an injury to a ligament often brought about by a wrench or twist. A sprain can be a simple sprain, a partial tear or a complete tear. This can happen to various parts of a person’s body during an accident. It is not uncommon for a person to twist in their seat as a vehicle strikes theirs during the incident.
A strain is an injury to the muscle or tendon caused by overuse, force or stretching. The force of the car crash can push on a person’s soft tissue or cause parts to stretch in an abnormal way.Muscles and tendons support your bones. A strain may cause a partial or complete tear in the muscle and tendon combination.
The neck of a car occupant can whip forward causing the most common rear impact injury known as whiplash. General Motors (GM) did a study regarding crashes at speeds below eight mph. GM found, to no surprise, that injuries do occur at such low speeds. The study also showed that whiplash injuries account for more than half of all injuries connected to vehicular accidents. 
Although these types of injuries are characteristically classified as minor nearly 30 percent of those hurt in low speed collisions have reported having neck pain up to three years later. This injury is likely to be worse in those that experienced a rear end collision. Depending on the age of the person this injury could cause a permanent disability.
A motor vehicle can take the force of a low speed collision without showing much damage due to the advances car manufacturers have made in the construction of their vehicles. When a collision does occur the force of the accident pushes inertia somewhere and once the automobile has taken part of that energy away the occupants take the rest. These forces are what can cause people bodily harm even in a crash of below 10 mph.Soft tissue injuries can occur to those involved in a low speed impact and though these injuries might be hard to see they exist.