Even if you are not currently in pain, if you have been in auto accident recently there could be underlying and hidden damage to your spinal column that may not cause symptoms of a serious trauma for months or even years. If you have been injurred you can spend extraordinary amounts of time and money trying to resolve frustrating chronic symptoms. Chiropractic care offers the most effective treatment for most back ailments. Chiropractors specialize in non-surgical treatments for spinal injuries like whiplash, sprains, some disk issues (a chiropractor can do nothing for a ruptured disk. A good one should send you to a specialist), and other types of back pain from automobile accidents.

When your head is hurled violently backward causing a (hyper-extension) and/or forward (hyper flexion) - whip lash occurs. This injury can be much more severe if your neck is snapped to the side when the accident occurs-for example if you are broadsided or if the car spins or fishtales. Whiplash is the most common auto accident injury, but there may be more underlying damage than a neck sprain or whiplash. Just because a condition is common does not mean it is not serious. After an accident you should go to an emergency room for documentation if nothing else, but remember Emergency Rooms are there for serious traumas. If you are not bleeding profusely, vomiting or screaming in agony, after waiting three or four hours you will be lucky to get a prescription for pain relievers and instructions to go to your family doctor if you don't feel better in three days. Your family doctor can give you medications and some guidance but GPs are not necessarily your best bet for back and neck injuries.

Do not ignore the aches and pains that develop if the few days and weeks after your accident. Those pains can indicate more serious problems. If ignored, the pain may go away, but the shoulder, back or neck damage will not heal correctly. If left untreated those injuries will be a source of future pain, arthritis and radicular symptoms. The permanent damage that results may lead to a life of chronic pain and discomfort. The effects of whiplash injury can be short term or long term even in relatively minor accidents. Whiplash is also often accompanied by a concussion-even if you did not actually hit your head. Often whiplash injuries can extend to shoulders, arms, and may cause injury to joints, spinal disc, ligaments, nerves and cervical muscles. It takes a minimum of three months to heal properly with treatment. Without treatment your recovery time will be much longer.

Over the past few years chiropractors have won the right to be reimbursed for the chiropractic care of auto accident victims. Insurance companies have come to see the value and the advantages of chiropractics offers to their clients. More importantly, however, chiropractic treatment saves insurance companies money by dramatically reducing the number of cases that go to surgery and other dramatic treatments. Regardless of wh was at fault or who was driving you have medical coverage if you have insurance.

If you are somewhat leary of non-traditional medical treatments you can relax. Chiropractors are highly trained medical professionals who go through rigorous training in physiology, biology, chiropractics and physical therapy methods. They practice under the supervision and have to be licensed as other medical professionals. Clinical trials suggest that chiropractics are as safe and effective as more conventional treatments if not more so. Rather than simply treating symptoms, chiropractics employs the concept that restricted movement in the spine may lead to pain and reduced function. Spinal manipulation unblocks the restrictions and restores the movement thus reducing or eliminating pain permanently over time. In 1999 the Journal of Orthopedic Medicine published a study that suggested that 26 of 28 patients (93%) with chronic whiplash benefited from chiropractic care and that "chiropractic is the only proven effective treatment for whiplash."