An impact that causes your head to jerk back and forth very quickly can injure your neck, leading to a painful condition known as whiplash.
Depending on the severity of the whiplash, you could have suffered damage to your muscles, spinal discs, or nerves. Here are five signs that you are experiencing whiplash.
Intense Neck Pain
Neck pain that intensifies when you turn your head is a telltale sign of whiplash. When your head and neck receive a harmful injury like whiplash, you could have broken muscle fibers and ligaments.
In severe cases, you can end up with spinal fractures or broken vertebrae. These injured tissues and joints cause the intense neck pain you experience when you get whiplash.
Neck Stiffness
Do you feel like you cannot turn your neck in a certain direction? Do you experience unbearable pain when you try to force neck movements? This is one of the most common symptoms of whiplash.
Your body is nursing damaged tissues, and the resulting intense soreness often leads to stiffness. You may find that your neck mobility is extremely limited when you have whiplash.
Headaches
Headaches alone do not mean that you have whiplash, but they frequently accompany other symptoms.
Forceful head and neck movements that cause whiplash can also cause frequent headaches afterward. This is because the muscles that support your head and neck are damaged and sore, leading to radiating pain around your head. Some people even experience migraine headaches when dealing with whiplash.
Numbness and Tingling
Another sign of whiplash is numbness or tingling in any of your extremities, such as your arms, hands, legs, or feet.
Most of the nerves in your body connect at the base of your neck in your cervical spine. When these nerves are injured, it can cause nerve signals to misfire. This leads to a “pins and needles” feeling. Numbness and tingling are signs of severe whiplash and should be addressed immediately.
Mood and Memory Changes
If you find yourself feeling more depressed, anxious, or irritable than normal after an injury, you may have whiplash. Whiplash can cause cognitive symptoms like mood changes and memory problems. You may also have trouble concentrating after your injury.
Stem Cell Therapy for Whiplash
Stem cell treatments can potentially alleviate some of the symptoms of whiplash. This therapy uses undeveloped cells to regenerate and repair tissues in your body. If you are suffering from muscular and neurological injuries because of whiplash, consider the benefits of stem cell therapy.
This post was written by a medical professional at Stemedix Inc. At Stemedix we provide access to Regenerative Medicine. Regenerative medicine has the natural potential to help improve symptoms sometimes lost from the progression of many conditions. We also offer Personalized Pain Management In St Petersburg FL.