Symptoms of Whiplash

The occurrence of whiplash is usually the result of a car accident. It occurs when soft tissue in the spine is stretched and strained after the body is thrown in a sudden and forceful jer.

As well as being the most common injury associated with car accidents, whiplash is also caused by strenuous exercise in which the muscles in the neck and back are pulled resulting in whiplash.

You won’t realise that you are suffering from whiplash until after the accident that causes it has happened. The symptoms of whiplash do not appear straight away and it could take a number of days before you feel any sign of whiplash. Although whiplash normally clears up after either a few days or a couple of weeks, the discomfort and pain that whiplash causes can still seriously affect your daily life. You could be out of work for several weeks meaning that you are losing your financial income that covers your bills as well as living expenses.

There are several common symptoms of whiplash such as headaches, stiffness in the neck and stiffness in the back of your head. Whiplash is a strain injury and in some cases people develop what is known as whiplash syndrome; this is when even after the symptoms of whiplash have gone you still continue to suffer from frequent headaches, pain in the back of your head and tingling in your arms as well as reduced movement in your neck.

There are also several rare but severe symptoms that you should look out for, such as memory loss, periods of unconsciousness, severe pains in the back of the head or pins and needles in the shoulders or arms. If any of these symptoms appear and persist you should seek medical help from either your doctor or from the hospital.

There isn’t really a treatment for whiplash in itself, however you can reduce the effects that whiplash has. For example to reduce swelling and inflammation you should wrap an ice bag in a cloth and apply to the neck, one of the most effective ways to do this is by lying on the ice bag for 20 minutes at a time. You should also take paracetamol every 4 to 8 hours to help reduce the pain. If these painkillers don’t work you should visit your GP who will be able to provide a stronger substitute.

As well as applying ice and taking painkillers you can also exercise to relieve pain and stiffness in your neck and back of your head. This exercise is as follows:

Stand with your head facing forward and move your eyes, but not your head, to look up, down, left and right. You should do this several times. The reason why this is helpful is because moving your eyes in this way causes a movement in deep muscles that are at the back of your head.

Another way in which you can gently exercise your neck and head is by carefully moving you head forwards, as if you are looking down then bend your head back as if looking up.

By exercising your head and neck in these ways you are getting movement to your muscles without causing the whiplash to become worst; you are helping the whiplash heal.