Auto Accident Information by Orange County, CA
Car Accident Injury Specialist, Dr Barry Marks, Chiropractor, Orange, CA 92868
Upper Back Pain from an Auto Accident?
This is a surprisingly common complaint, with an even more surprising root cause in most cases.
Does this sound familiar after your car accident?
You have pain in the upper back, more precisely in the shoulder blade area or on the top of the “wing bone” area. You rub it, you move your shoulder around, yet still it hurts. You may have even gone to a massage therapist or physical therapist and had them massage and exercise your upper back, but still the upper back pain after your auto accident lingers. It’s hard to get comfortable. You have difficulty sitting at a desk, using a computer, talking on the phone or driving without the incessant pain.
Do you ever think,
“If only someone could just dig their fingers in deep enough to release that tension or knot in there you’d be fine…”
Right now, I want you to do a simple test. I call it the “slump” test, because I have no idea what the real name of it is or if it is named, but this simple 5-second test will pinpoint your problem.
While sitting, I want you to slump your shoulders and body forward and round your upper back. Now, while you are slumped forward, tilt your head up and try to look towards the ceiling. Slump forward again and lift your head up towards the left and then to the right.
If you felt shoulder blade or upper back pain, then your upper back problem is actually coming from your neck! Specifically, the facet or zygaophyseal joints. This is actually the most common injury in a motor vehicle collision; a sprain and damage of the facet joint. It accounts for a majority of chronic neck and upper back pain cases after an accident.
If your back did not hurt when you were slumped over and tilted your head back, then try this test.
Sit and retract your shoulder blades (try to squeeze them together behind you). Now try shrugging your left shoulder up and back then repeat on the right.
Did any of these movements cause shoulder blade pain or upper back pain? If so, then you are suffering from muscular strain in the upper back area.
These are standard tests that all car accident injury specialists should perform on your exam to determine if that upper back pain after your car accident is from your neck or your back.
For more information on car accident injuries and treatment read the articles on this site and for information on Car Accident Injury Treatment in Orange County, CA go to http://orange-car-accident.com
1. Lie face down on your bed or the floor.
2. Keeping your chest and shoulders down, lift your head up and attempt to look at the ceiling.
3. Hold position for 10-20 seconds depending on your strength.
4. Lower your head, then repeat 10 times.
For more information on car accident injuries including a Shocking Free Report and an Online Video Whiplash Seminar, go to http://www.orange-car-accident.com
At the moment of impact in a typical rear-end collision, your head remains momentarily still while your body is forced forward. This instantaneous separation of the movement of your torso and head causes the neck shape to be deformed injuring muscles, ligaments, tendons, discs, joint surfaces, nerves and even your brain.
This all occurs before you are even conscious of the collision. By the time you realized you were hit, your spine as already been damaged!
The degree of spine damage depends on many factors including your age, gender, body type, vehicle type, seat and head restraint type, your position at impact, previous accidents, and more. Interestingly, vehicle damage has been repeatedly shown NOT to be a good predictor of bodily injury.
One of the most reliable factors of injury are your symptoms and how soon after the collision they show up and your x-ray findings. Much research has gone into determining the long-term outlook of crash victims and how to predict whether you will recover from your injuries or not.
The presence of an abnormal neck curve on x-rays after a collision is a key factor in your prognosis. Medical researchers have found that if your neck is damaged it will change it’s shape which is readily measurable on x-ray examination. How far from normal your neck curve has deviated determines how badly you are injured and how difficult it may be to return your neck to normal.
Consider the pictures below…on the left is a normal curve that resembles a backwards “C.” On the right is an “S” shaped curve due to whiplash.
A normal “C” shaped neck curve measures between 30 and 40 degrees. There is some debate about whether or not the higher number, 40 is a steadfast norm. I believe, if you are between those numbers that is a good place to be.
Let’s compare a normal neck, Figure 1 and an abnormal neck in Figure 2:
You may have noticed that the patient is facing to the left instead of to the right as in the pictures previously, but you should also note that Fig. 1 has a nice deep curve, while Fig. 2 is very straight. This is a classic example of what is called a “hypolordosis” or decreased curve of the neck.
What you need to understand is that after your initial treatment that is designed to reduce pain by quelling inflammation and spasm, it is highly probable that your neck will still be misshaped like this. Unfortunately, doctors who do not know about or do not understand the importance of fully rehabilitating a neck after an accident, treat many crash victims. So once your pain is reduced, these doctors will unceremoniously release you from care without taking a second set of x-rays to measure your curve. You will be released with less pain, but your neck is still damaged inside and will eventually become painful again. Worse, is that later you will suffer deterioration of your neck joints and have early osteoarthritis. Medical research indicates a 600% increase in risk for early arthritis in victims with persistently reduced neck curve after a crash.As you can see, it is very important for your long-term health to correct your neck as much as possible.
In the next post, we will cover the specific neck exercises you MUST do if you have suffered an auto accident.
For more information on car accident injuries including a Free Report
and a Free Online Video
Teen Driving Safety
Drunk Driving Awareness info
Dr Barry L Marks, Chiropractor, Orange, CA
Car Accident Injury Specialist
This is the third of 3 videos I have come across that parents and young drivers should watch together.
The third video reinforces the destructive power that each car possesses. It also graphically depicts the consequences of driving while impaired. In this case after a moderate amount of alcohol, but it could easily have been texting, goofing with friends, eating, even changing the stations on the radio.
Please share this with others and make the streets safer for all of us.
Orange County Car Accident Information
Dr Barry L Marks, Chiropractor Orange, CA
Auto Accident Injury Treatment Expert
Scientific and medical studies have shown that upwards of 40% of car accident victims suffer long-term pain and impairment. Therefore, contrary to what insurance companies may want you to believe, whiplash is not a self limited problem that will just go away. Car accident injuries are serious.
Researchers point to 3 distinct structures that become injured in a car accident that account for the vast majority of chronic whiplash sufferers.
Facet joint injury
because the damage. Namely, neck damage is The number one cause of chronic neck pain form am motor vehicle collision is a damaged facet joint. The facet joints technically known as zygapohyseal joints, are the joints on the back of the spine that connect two spinal bones or vertebrae together. These joints are designed to allow your spine to move. When the neck is subjected to the extreme forces of a motor vehicle collision, the joints become damaged. These injuries are nearly impossible to detect since symptoms of a damaged facet joint are the same as a whiplash strain type injury without facet joint damage. Pain and stiffness that radiates into the shoulder blade on certain head and neck movements is the hallmark of this injury. Facet joint injury is suspected in cases of whiplash that fail to respond fully in a reasonable amount of time and a pain pattern that is reproducible. When the head is angled backward and to the side at the same time and then slightly compressed, the characteristic shoulder blade pain will appear.
Intervertebral disc injury
contact nerves The next most common cause of chronic whiplash pain is a damaged disc. The larger part of the spinal bones are separated by a disc. The disc is a shock absorber and a spacer to allow room for nerves to exit between the vertebrae. Car accidents cause shearing forces across the disc and cause the fibers to tear. Small tears in the outer disc fibers will cause pain in the centerline of the spine . Tears may eventually worsen until the disc begins to bulge outward which causes radiating pain into the arms, hands or fingers. Often times the disc bulge or herniation occurs weeks, months even years after the initial injury.
Upper cervical ligament damage
The third most common cause of chronic whiplash pain, particularly headaches is damage to the ligaments that hold your head and upper neck in alignment. These “accessory” ligaments as they are commonly called, are damaged by teh spine being forced into an “S” configuration milliseconds after impact. The result is looseness in the joints between the skull and the top 2 spinal bones the “atlas” and “axis.” The looseness is often hidden early on by muscle spasm, but once spasm abates a noticeable “clunk” or “crack” will be heard and felt by the victim on turning or tilting the head. The looseness leads to misalignment of the upper cervical vertebrae which cause head pain.
You may now realize that whiplash injuries from car accidents are in fact serious. Up to 40% of car accident victims will suffer chronic pain and impairment because they have suffered injury to their facet joints, disc or accessory ligaments.
Learn more about injuries and treatment after a car accident by attending a Free Car Accident Injury Webinar. This is an in depth 10 part video series that explains in easy to understand language what whiplash is, what effects it has on your health and what can be done about it. There is even a session on how to avoid whiplash injuries. The information is suitable for the public but is also fully referenced with leading scientific references so that doctors and lawyers handling these cases can better help their patients and clients.
Car Accident in Orange County, CA
Dr Barry L Marks, Chiropractor, Orange, CA 92868
Car Accident Recently?
If you’ve suffered an auto accident recently you probably have many questions. Who will fix my car? Am I really injured? How will I pay for medical treatment? Do I have to sue someone?
Assuming you have already obtained the personal and auto insurance information from the person that hit you, your next step is quite logical.
You need to determine whether or not you are injured.
A personal injury case is predicated on medical damages. If you have not suffered any medically verified injuries, there is nothing to discuss other than a simple transaction of repairing your vehicle.
But how do you know if you are truly injured?
If you’ve been to the emergency room or have already visited your family or HMO doctor, you may have had a cursory exam and been told you have a neck or back strain. Often you will not have had x-rays and often even if you do, you will be told they are “essentially normal.” The first thing to know about car accident injuries or whiplash is that they are often underestimated by most medical physicians.
What you need is to be evaluated by a true car accident injury specialist. Your spine may be injured more than you realize and you may not even feel that much pain nor have suffered much vehicle damage. A true expert will uncover any hidden or subtle injuries that exist.
Once you have been found to be injured, these injuries must be properly documented. By proper, I mean the precise diagnosis codes must be used. The correct number and very specific codes and time frames must be used. Most generalist doctors and even many “experts” do not know how to do this correctly. That could cost you later.
Next you need to begin care and follow your expert doctor’s advice. Proper healing will only occur if you follow his or her treatment protocol. That brings up another point. Your doctor must know the proper treatment to provide. He or she should provide, in a certain sequence, the correct therapies that have been proven to heal whiplash injuries and are acceptable to insurance companies. An auto accident case is no place for a “guru” doctor to provide unusual or controversial care. It must be scientifically sound and legally defensible.
Depending on the scope of your injuries, you may be advised to seek legal counsel right away and/or to possibly see another medical specialist for additional evaluation and/or treatment. This will be apparent within the first weeks of care with your car accident medical expert.
Dr Barry Marks is a chiropractor, author and lecturer in Orange, CA. He is a former Associate Clinical Professor at a leading Chiropractic College and has specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of auto accident injuries since 1986. As an Advanced Graduate of the Spine Research Institutes’s Whiplash Traumatology and Brain Injury Program he is one of Orange County’s most experienced whiplash experts. Visit Dr Marks at http://www.orange-car-accident.com
The Truth About Whiplash Seminar Series Part 1 by Dr Barry L Marks, Chiropractor, Author and Lecturer Orange, CA
Former Associate Clinical Professor and Car Accident injury specialist, Dr Barry L Marks presents the first in a series of videos to reveal “The Truth About Whiplash.”
Part 1: The Problem with Whiplash explains common misconceptions about car accident injuries and lays out the basic facts about whiplash. Dr. Marks information is fuller referenced citing some of the world;s leading authorities on whiplash research.
This information is easy to understand yet very powerful and persuasive. It is suitable for auto accident victims as well as for continuing education for doctors and lawyers handling car accident cases.
Car Accidents result in medical expenses, lost time from work, pain and suffering, vehicle damage, and other damages.
What car accident settlements should include:
Compensation for medical expenses including office visits and therapy charges for chiropractors, medical doctors, physical therapists, and surgeons. Medications both over the counter and prescription are also compensated for.
Compensation for lost time from work. You will need a signed letter or form from your employer and/or check stubs that prove that you lost income as a result of your injury.
Compensation for pain and suffering. “Pain and suffering” refers to the time you were unable to enjoy your normal life due to pain from the car accident. It is also intended for the period of time you endured pain while still working or performing daily household activities.
Compensation for your vehicle damage.
Compensation for any other incidental expenses you incur as a direct result of the collision.
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We also provide Car Accident solutions for residents of Los Angeles County in Whittier, Norwalk, La Mirada, Santa Fe Springs, Long Beach, Bellflower, Downey. And to Corona, Chino, and Chino Hills residents.
Posted by Dr Barry L. Marks, DC 
Posted by Dr Barry L. Marks, DC 
Posted by Dr Barry L. Marks, DC 
Scientific and medical studies have shown that upwards of 40% of car accident victims suffer long-term pain and impairment. Therefore, contrary to what insurance companies may want you to believe, whiplash is not a self limited problem that will just go away. Car accident injuries are serious.
Dr Barry Marks is a chiropractor, author and lecturer in Orange, CA. He is a former Associate Clinical Professor at a leading Chiropractic College and has specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of auto accident injuries since 1986. As an Advanced Graduate of the Spine Research Institutes’s Whiplash Traumatology and Brain Injury Program he is one of Orange County’s most experienced whiplash experts. Visit Dr Marks at 
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