How To Recover After A Car Accident

If you’ve suffered an injury in a car crash, recovery will take time and care. Some injuries take weeks or months to heal, depending on severity, pre-existing health conditions, and how well you follow treatment. 

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Seek Medical Care Immediately

 Not all injuries from a car accident will be visible immediately. Pain and symptoms from concussion, whiplash, and spine damage can take hours, days, or even weeks to appear. The longer you wait to seek medical care, the higher the risk is of injuries worsening and needing a lengthier recovery period. If you leave them untreated, injuries like whiplash and herniated spinal discs can lead to chronic pain in the future. Unrated concussions or internal bleeding can be life-threatening or cause permanent brain damage. 

Even if you don’t think you are in any pain after a car accident, see your doctor for a checkup. They will run some tests to check for internal bleeding, swelling, fractures, and soft tissue damage. 

Find The Right Doctor

Your primary care physician might not be the best doctor to see after a car accident. Your usual doctor is trained to treat internal injuries, but many of them do not have the right training or qualifications to identify, diagnose, and treat common injuries from accidents like whiplash, concussions, soft tissue injuries, and fractures. 

Instead, seek care from a specialist who has experience in treating the types of injuries that you might sustain such as an auto accident chiropractor. 

Follow Your Prescribed Treatment Plan

The treatment process after an accident can be long and slow. The most effective way that you can ensure you make a complete recovery, in as short a time span as possible, is to follow the prescribed treatment plan created by your doctor. This might include:

• Taking time off work and limiting normal activities to allow your body time to heal
• Taking medications as prescribed
• Taking part in physical therapy
• Performing exercises recommended by your therapist at home
• Setting and attending follow-up appointments with your physician

If you feel as though some parts of your treatment plan aren’t effective, don’t stop following the plan. Instead, raise your concerns with your doctor. Together, you can discuss alternative treatment options that will work more effectively for you. 

Get Plenty Of Rest

Sleep and rest are very important components of the recovery process. When you sleep, your body increases blood flow to your muscles, causing tissue and muscle growth and repair to happen. The levels of stress hormones in your body drop when you sleep too, which can help to reduce internal inflammation. After an accident that causes a major injury, it is important that you slow down and get plenty of rest so your body has the time to heal. Good sleep will also give you more energy, make you feel alert, and improve your mood. 

Know your limits and don’t push yourself too hard or too soon. If you try to power through serious car accident injuries, you run the risk of injuring yourself further.