When I was 8 years old my Dad was given this little round piece of wood that had the word "TUIT" engraved on it by a salesman. The joke is that you no longer have the excuse of "I'll get around to it someday", because I just gave you "a round TUIT". Its a corney sales joke, but that little piece of wood really struck me as powerful. It made me think (as philosophical as an 8 year old can get) that excuses are, for the most part, just in our heads. If we really put our minds to it we can make just about anything happen.

This especially is the case if you have been in a car accident in Seattle or Bellevue. The excuse "I'll get around to it at some point" can potentially really harm your health. In essence, you can not afford, for any reason to wait for your "ROUND TUIT".  Time and again I have patients walk through my door dealing with terrible neck and back pain, and as we start talking it was revealed that they had been in a car accident at some point and never received any care. 

One of the largest studies ever done on whiplash injuries confirms this truth. It found that 55% of whiplash patients were still in the original pain from their accident 17 years later. My experience shows that the reason for these people still being in pain all those years later is that they either never took the time to take care of them selves or they received bad advise from someone who knows very little to nothing about whiplash injuries. 

If you have been in a car accident, please take the time to go and get checked. It may save you a lot of heart ache and pain down the road. Don't wait for your "round TOIT", give us a call at Bellevue Whiplash Center at Back in Action Chiropractic to receive a check up.

Did you know that 20% of car accidents occur in parking lots? This should not surprise me, because if you have ever been to Costco on a Saturday, that parking lot is a zoo! This is a really good video on how to avoid a parking lot car crash, and if you are in one, what to do.

This is a very common thing for me to hear from a patient who was injured in a car accident. Pain down the leg can possibly be something called sciatica.

Sciatica is a term referring to severe pain in the leg. It is often accompanied by numbness, weakness and tingling sensation originating in the lower back and traveling downwards through the buttock. These sensations travel through the large sciatic nerve present in the back of the leg.

The most common cause of sciatica and back pain following a car accident is the sheer force that the seat belt places on the lower back and the associated nerves. When involved in a car crash, your seat belt anchors your hips down to your seat, and the forces of being hit cause the area directly above the seat belt to move forward. This creates a sheering force across the fifth and last bone in the back and all of the nerves associated with it. On top of this sheering force the resultant injury causes the body to spasm and this pinches all of the nerves around the spasm in the muscles

Sciatic pain can be very severe and can be felt in the lower back region, buttocks, and various parts of leg and foot. People suffering from sciatica will find it difficult to walk, or even get up from bed.

Some of the common symptoms of sciatica are:

1. Tingling or burning sensation in the leg

2. Weakness in the leg or foot, difficulty in movements

3. Sharp pain that may make it difficult to get up or walk

4. Pain in one side of the buttock or in one leg

There are 2 cases though in which immediate medical attention has to be sought:

1. Progressive weakness in leg

2. Urinary or bowel incontinence

People with the above symptoms may have cauda equina syndrome and should to directly to the emergency room.
Treatment for Sciatica:

Sciatica is a symptom of an underlying problem such as herniated disc. In order to treat sciatica, the underlying problem has to be determined. There are various ways to treat sciatica. Surgery is only required in severe cases, otherwise this problem can be treated with non-surgical treatment methods. 

Chiropractic care has been shown to be extremely helpful with sciatic pain. In fact it is one of the things that we specialize in here at Bellevue Whiplash Center at Back in Action Chiropractic. Back exercises, stretching exercises, healthy diet, and massage can also be extremely helpful in eliminating sciatica. There are numerous natural and home remedies to ease the suffering. Here are a few things you can try:

1. Taking  turmeric daily can help in reducing some of the nagging pain because of the anti-inflammatory agents in tumeric.

2. You can apply winter green oil to the affected leg for relieving the muscle pain.

3. You should not be still for extended periods of time. You have to keep moving, but not too fast to aggravate the pain. When you sit or lie down for a long time, the muscles will tighten, thus increasing the pain.

If you are suffering with sciatica since your car accident, please give us a call at 425-635-0495. We would love to see if you are a candidate for the type of care that we deliver for car accident victims.

As you might have read from some of our blog posts about what to do after being involved in a car accident, one of the first steps to take is to call 911 to let them know that there was an accident. If you have never been involved in a car accident though calling 911 for this reason may be completely foreign. Below is an excellent video that was done by a 911 operator explaining exactly how that call will probably go. 

All too often the thing we think about first after an auto accident is our car, but the damage to your body may be far worse. 

Many of my patients are surprised to find themselves in pain days, weeks or even months after having had a car accident.. Obviously, if you have been in a major accident, go directly to the E.R. so you can be treated for cuts, organ damage, broken bones or other serious trauma's. After any life-threatening emergencies have been treated, it is a good idea to visit a chiropractor.

As a Chiropractor I am skilled in addressing the dysfunctions in the musculoskeletal system that so often happen after being involved in an car accident, especially any misaligned bones. The injury suffered in the neck following a crash can be quite bad, even resulting in postconcussion syndrome and what we call TBI's, or traumatic brain injury's, that may keep you from fully healing. An auto accident can pinch nerves and cause damage to your bones, tendons and ligaments supporting the spine.

The most common condition that I treat as a chiropractor following a car accident is what is called cervical acceleration/deceleration injury's, more commonly known as whiplash. Whiplash from being rear-ended can cause a great amount of chronic, ongoing pain. Though the introduction of seat belts has helped save lives, it can contribute to these types of whiplash injury's. When hit from behind, the seat belt keeps your body from being hurled forward, though, there is no such restraint on your head. What first happens is that your chest, while being supported by the back of your seat, jolts forward, but your unsupported head and neck snaps back. This can cause the neck to go too far back, well beyond its normal capacity, tearing the muscles and ligaments in the front of your neck. Then when your car stops moving your body is flung forward, restrained by your safety belt, but there is nothing to keep your head and neck from being sent forward, injuring the muscles and ligaments in the back of your neck and head. 

You may not feel much immediately after a car accident, but do not let that fool you that you have not been injured. This is most likely because your body's natural pain-killing endorphins, like adrenalin, are released when you are injured, masking any pain.  You may later experience neck pain, headaches, dizziness or pain radiating into the shoulder and down into your arms or hands.

Many of my patients have experienced relief and stability after an caraccident from headaches, lower back pain, neck pain and even jaw pain. A study in the Journal of Orthopedic Medicine found that 93% of people suffering from pain and symptoms of chronic whiplash experienced improvement under chiropractic care. Chiropractic has been shown to be extremely effective in helping with pain after a car accident and lowering the likelihood of it becoming a long term problem.

Car accidents can lead to a host of injury's to the human body. Our current understanding of car accident injury's is that the ligaments of the spine are most damaged during these collisions. Monohar Panjabi is one of the foremost authorities on these types of injury's and what they do to the human body. Below is an article he wrote on this subject. This understanding of the car accident injury, also validates why chiropractic patients respond so favorably following a car accident.

Driving here on the Eastside can sometimes be a dangerous activity. No one WANTS to get into an accident, but with the amount of traffic, distracted drivers, and irresponsible drivers (drunk drivers, aggressive drivers, road rage, etc...) they do happen. Here is the first step to follow if you are in an car accident here in Bellevue.

1. Make sure to be prepared.

Being prepared for an accident before an accident ever happens is one of if not the most important step to take. It is my experience working with auto injury patients for the last 12 years that the people who are well prepared before they ever get into an accident have a far less traumatic experience. The best example I have of this is if you have ever been pulled over by a police officer. The times that I have put all of my relevant information, licence, title, etc... into one envelope that I hand the police officer, my experience has been very low stress. Its the time that my tittle is buried in the glove compartment and I cant find anything that I am the most stressed. So what does it mean to be prepared?

First off, preparation starts when you are buying your auto insurance policy. Know exactly what you are buying and that you have enough insurance to protect for the worst case scenario. Do your research and make sure you are protecting your health, your family and your car.

Secondly, it means having all of the tangible things you need following an accident at arms length. Have all of your insurance information available, company, policy number, and any phone numbers in your glove compartment and in your wallet in case the glove compartment is damaged. Also, if your cell phone does not have a good camera it is good practice to have a disposable camera to take pictures of the scene and your cars. And lastly, a pen and paper to take down all of the other drivers information.

If you are in a car accident in Bellevue, make sure you are prepared for the worst. In our next blog post we will continue this series on the steps to take following a motor vehicle accident.