Case of the Month July 2014

Car Accident

Have you ever been in a fender bender? Ever notice how sore you are afterwards?

I have a patient that we will call Pat. Pat was involved in an auto accident recently where she was driving, stopped for traffic and a car hit her from behind going close to 40 MPH.

After the accident Pat reported loss of hearing, headaches, vision problems, neck pain, shoulder pain and arm pain. Needless to say Pat was not feeling good and went to the hospital to get everything checked out. Once cleared from there Pat came to see me in the hopes that I would be able to help her.

I discovered that her neck and midback were completely stuck and swollen, not uncommon after a bad auto accident. Her range of motion was limited to almost zero in every range with extreme pain in every direction.

I got to work by adjusting Pat’s thoracic and cervical spine. After the adjustments, I had Pat do range of motion exercises, posture specific stretching and iced both areas. Within one week, Pat was reporting that she was feeling much better. What I was the most excited about was the 50% improvement in range of motion. 50% in one week! (Yes I know, but for me it is the little things.)

As the weeks went by Pat reported that she was moving and feeling better than she had in a long time, even before the accident. The coolest part of all of this was her focus level.

Prior to the accident Pat told me she had a hard time focusing on tasks for any period of time.

Within 3 weeks Pat felt she was getting more done at work in a shorter period of time. Talk about the brain body connection! When you remove the interference from the body, the brain knows what to do!

 

Case of the Month June 2010

I got a frantic phone call last month from a patient we will call Mary.  Mary had been in an auto accident and was in severe pain.  Mary was stopped at a light when she got rear ended from behind.  The impact was so hard Mary hit the car in front of her.  Luckily Mary was wearing her seatbelt.

When Mary came into the office she reported neck pain, shoulder pain, and right arm pain.  On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being severe, Mary rated all three pains a 9.  Upon exam Mary presented with tightness in the neck and shoulders as well as diminshed reflexes in her arms.

Mary had been x-rayed at the hospital and luckily had no fractures.  She did have an extremely reduced curve in her neck.  This lack of curve was putting a lot of tension on the muscles and nerves in her neck and in my opinion was the source of a lot of her pain.

We began treating Mary with gentle adjustments, ice, traction and exercise.  The going was real slow for the first week. I wish I could tell you Mary jumped off the table after one visit telling me how awesome I was…didn’t happen.

The second week of care was when we really started to see some results.  The muscle tension and spasm started to really clear up and most importantly Mary was really starting to feel better.

It was by week 6 when Mary was really able to get through the day without pain.  Needless to say Mary was thrilled. When she reported to the office she was a 9, with 10 being the worst, and now she was in the 1-2 range.

The key to Mary’s recovery was her dedication to getting better.  In 8 weeks Mary missed one appointment, did her home exercise and most importantly kept her chin up when the going got tough.

I am proud of Mary and so happy to be able to take a part in helping her.

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