Today I would like to talk to you about doing physical therapy or chiropractic therapy when it being involved in an injury
such as a car accident.

Technically, you should be doing both.

What we do in our office is we start with chiropractor care, as well as deep tissue massage therapy during your acute/subacute states of recovery from your injury.

Once you have demonstrated spinal stability and have begun to heal the most painful part of your injuries, we then refer you to physical therapy, either to our in-house physical therapist, Dr. Sapida, or to a physical therapist of your choice.

So think about it. Do you get referred to physical therapy right after surgery, or do you generally wait until the surgery has
healed somewhat? Now, if you broke your arm or had a laceration, would you start physical therapy right away, or wait until there has been some healing that has taken place? Well, same thing happens inside of us.

When we've had a whiplash type injury, we generally will have some degree of tearing of the muscles and ligaments that move your body and hold your joints together. To start exercising those muscles and ligaments right after an injury is not the best thing to do, especially after an auto accident.

Sometimes it's best to let those tissue heal naturally with chiropractic and massage therapy, while gently guiding you through those treatments to make sure the spine aligns and heals correctly and that the deep tissue massage therapy treatments, which help prevent muscles from going into spasm and contracture, has an opportunity to let things kind of relax before you get into the next phase of care. Once that phase of recovery has passed, you should then start physical therapy.

Oftentimes I see patients, primary care providers, family doctors, refer them right away to physical therapy, immediately after a car accident. Well, coincidentally, statistically, those are also the patients that take the longest to heal and often time don't make a full recovery.

However, by doing physical therapy at the appropriate time and in conjunction with chiropractic care and massage therapy,
you ensure your chances of reaching maximum medical improvement and pre-injury status with minimal if not any residual symptoms whatsoever after the treatment.

I generally like to start, like I said, with chiropractic care and massage therapy care, in the acute/subacute stages of recovery and then when you're stable enough we move on to physical therapy and transition from active to passive care.

If you'd like to learn more about that, if you'd like to learn more about please call 425-347-8614 to setup a complimentary consultation.