Essence Treatment

When a powerful force throws your head forward and then it abruptly returns it to its original position, you experience a terrible pain. Then you start to feel dizzy, your arms and legs feel weakness, and the pang starts to crawl from your neck to your shoulders and up to your face. You don’t know what to do and you feel like you are gravely injured. It seems that your spine is badly damaged and you will no longer be able to move forever. Do not worry too much. You are just suffering from whiplash.

Whiplash is a neck injury caused when the neck is suddenly thrown back and forth like a whip. It is usually associated with motor vehicular accidents, especially when the car is hit at the rear. That is the reason why whiplash has been one of the main injuries that is covered by most car insurers in the United Kingdom. While whiplash indeed happens most of the time during vehicle accidents (430,000 people claimed they suffered from whiplash in 2007 in U.K.), this neck injury may also transpire in accidental falls (from chairs, ladders, bicycles and even horses).

The symptoms of whiplash injury include neck and back ache, shoulder pain, sensory disturbance in the arms and legs, headaches, dizziness, and numbness and weakness in different parts of the body (most especially in the face and limbs). These may show up immediately after the accident, yet it could also take several days ― even a span of one week ― before the symptoms manifest. The graver the injury, the sooner the unpleasant sensations appear.

An injured person is usually strapped firmly on a strong board while wearing a collar neck in order to prevent any movement that might aggravate the situation. The patient is then examined by a doctor. More often than not, the injured is required to undergo X-ray examination. Sometimes, a doctor might even deem CT-scan necessary.

The Quebec Task Force has categorized the extent of whiplash-associated disorders into four:
1. Grade 0: absence of neck pain, stiffness, or any physical damage.
2. Grade 1: complaints of neck pain, stiffness and inflammation but the examining physician does not detect any physical sign.
3. Grade 2: complaints of neck pain and the physician finds out that there is a decreased range of motion and point of inflammation in the neck.
4. Grade 3: complaints of neck pain with neurological signs (decreased reflexes of deep tendon, weakness and deficiency in senses.
5. Grade 4: complaints of neck pain and presence of fracture or dislocation, or damage in the spinal cord.

Luckily, whiplash may be treated by physical exercises and therapies, medications like non-narcotic analgesics, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and rest.