Whiplash

Whiplash is a term that describes an injury to your neck; this injury is generally caused by a sudden movement that thrusts your head either forwards, backwards or sideways. It is the most common injury associated with road traffic accidents. In fact as many as two in three people who are involved in road traffic accidents develop neck pain. What many people don’t realise however is that to suffer a whiplash injury you don’t need to have been travelling in a car that was driving at excessive speeds. Even minor road traffic accidents can lead to the onset of whiplash.

Even if a car was say travelling at 10mph and was involved in a collision, even merely a minor one whiplash neck strains can occur. Whiplash can also occur from other aspects as oppose to road traffic accidents; these cases are rare but whiplash could also occur in for example sports injury. So what exactly is whiplash?

Whiplash causes damage to the ligaments and tendons that are found in the neck. These tendons are tough and connect the muscles in your neck to the bones. The ligaments on the other hand are fibrous connective tissues that link two bones together at a joint. When whiplash occurs the ligaments found in your neck are sprained. A sprain occurs when a ligament is overstretched. These sprains can often take several months to heal.

Some of the main symptoms that are associated with whiplash are pain, stiffness and a loss of movement within the neck area. It also causes headaches, muscle spasms and pain within the shoulders and/or arms. It should be noted however that it may take several hours after the injury has occurred before any symptoms start to appear. Also the pain and stiffness often becomes worse on the day after the injury has occurred. In almost half of the cases pain first starts to develop the day after the injury has occurred. The reason for this may be because the inflammation or bruising around a sprained muscle can take a while to build up.

Some of the other symptoms that you may suffer with the onset of whiplash are you may find it hard to turn or bend your neck, you may start to feel dizzy, get a headache or suffer blurred vision as well as suffering pain swallowing. If any of these symptoms however start to persist it is important that you visit your GP.

Tags: bones, headaches, inflammation, ligament, ligaments and tendons, muscle spasms, muscles, neck pain, road traffic accidents, shoulders, sports injury, sprain, sprains, stiffness, whiplash injury