Whiplash, How to Fix the Pain and Prevent Degeneration

Hi I’m Dr. Barry Swindler. I’m a chiropractic physician and a certified applied kinesiologist in Wake Forest North Carolina. You can find me at www.ChiropractorWakeForest.Com. I’m here today to talk to you about whiplash and the proper treatment of whiplash injuries.

Whiplash, you’ve heard that name probably used before, and it is where actually the head is thrown back and then thrown forward usually with a car accident rear end collisions or it can happen when a person has a slip and fall on the ice, or thrown from a horse or any type of injury where the neck is thrown back and then thrown forward. We call this hyperextension and hyperflexion. Other terms are acceleration/deceleration syndrome but we’ll just use the term whiplash. You can see that with the whiplash injury, the bones, the ligaments and the tendons are injured in this process. It needs to have corrective care to restore the function of the structures, and if not, the spine can go through degeneration. People do experience symptoms with whiplash injuries and there could be a big variety of symptoms. Some of the common ones are neck pain, neck swelling and tenderness of the back of the neck. You can have a headache, muscle spasms and very oftentimes, you can have a pain that radiates into the shoulder and down the arm. Soft tissues that are injured in a whiplash injury are the disc, the ligaments the muscles, the facets, and even the TMJ, the temporomandibular joint is affected. People can often have cranial faults. When I talk about cranial faults, I’m talking about the cranial bones in the skull. Since the muscles attach to the skull, they can affect the cranial sutures that are involved. Also people can have contusions and bruises in the spine. Corrective care for whiplash injuries is imperative so there isn’t any degeneration to take place in the spine. Very oftentimes that I see people in my office, for nonrelated car accidents or any whiplash, they’re having pain in their neck, and I go to ask them about their history, they’ll tell me, well five or ten years ago I had a car accident and whiplash, and this condition was left untreated and now they have lost the curve in their neck and their spine is starting to degenerate.

We are made to have certain curves in our spine. In our neck we’re supposed to have a curve somewhat like the contour of my hand and that same type of curve in our low back and the opposite curve in our mid back. This is a representation of the spine, although it is straight but it’s goes to show you the structure of the spine. In the areas that I’m talking about are the discs at each level. The disc is a soft tissue structure in between each vertebra and it’s there to be a shock absorber and also to allow movement at each vertebral level. In a car accident, when the head is thrown back and then thrown forward what happens is that it damages the ligaments that attach between the bones or the vertebra of the spine. It affects the facet joints, and these are the facet joints here between each vertebra. These allow for movement of the spine. Along with the ligaments, we have tendons. Now tendons attach muscle to bone together. Ligaments hold bone to bone together. With the tendons, they are damaged and of course the tendons are associated with the muscles of the neck. The muscles of the neck are the main treatment area that I focus on with correcting the function of the spine. The body neurologically turns off these muscles when the head is thrown back because the body wants to protect itself by keeping the head back to where it was. But the force of the impact from the rear end collision is going to neurologically turn these muscles off. So it’s the doctor’s job to get in and do the manual hands on therapy of these muscles to get them turned back on so we can restore function back in the neck.

I’m going to have a patient of mine come over to demonstrate a muscle test that I do in my office to evaluate the strength of the neck flexors. So if I can have my patient come over and have a seat on the table, I’m going to show you a very common muscle test I do in my office. When I find these weak muscles, I then ask the body a question, what’s going to turn them on? That is that is involved with getting into the belly of the muscle with the spindle cells are and also where the muscle attaches. Jeff is here, and I’m going to demonstrate a very common muscle test in my office for treatment of whiplash injuries or any condition a person has in the neck. I’m going to ask Jeff to bring his chin down to his chest, and I’m going to place my hand on his forehead and ask him to push his head into my hand. I meet his resistance, and I push back to find his neck flexors are weak. I can also test the sternocleidomastoid muscle. That muscle attaches behind the ear and runs down here and attaches to his chest here at the sternum. So Jeff, bring your head all the way down, turn your head all the way to the left. My hands go on the side of his head, and push your head into my hands. I meet his resistance and I’m going to push back the other way. What we find is weakness here of that muscle. The proper therapy is to figure out what’s going to turn these muscles back on. Again, the muscles are the main structures responsible for the curve in the neck. With those muscles being weak, it’s only going to allow the neck, the spine to straighten. What I mean about the spine is that we usually have a curve in the spine about like this in the neck. The weak neck flexors are going to allow the neck to straighten and therefore the disc to degenerate and also the bones to start making changes that are also common with degeneration. Many people seek different types of care for their whiplash whether it be going to the hospital or your regular doctor, and that is fine. If you need to take pain medication, please do. I advise people to seek the care of someone who is certified in applied kinesiology that is a technique I’ve been certified in for about 10 years now (since 2001).

Applied kinesiology or AK is what it is commonly referred to is a muscle testing diagnostic tool that I use in my office. It is the main tool that helps me restore the function in the spine. We are dealing with muscles that are injured here. With muscles, in the belly of the muscle like for instance, the sternocleidomastoid there are spindle cells that are affected and also golgi tendon organs that are affected. We need to figure out what’s going to strengthen them, and by strengthening them, it is going to allow the proper function in the neck. So that is why someone would choose seeking a chiropractor that is certified in applied kinesiology that uses the tools that help correct the muscle dysfunction that is going to help restore the function of the spine to help the patient return to good health and also prevent any further degeneration.