Neck pain may stem from whiplash

By Lim Yang-sun

There are many cases of people experiencing neck pain a few days after minor car accidents.

Even if the accident seemed minor and the person involved does not feel pain at the time of the incident, neck pain gradually develops and causes headaches, nausea, and vomiting.

In such cases, patients go to the hospital and undergo radiology tests to diagnose the problem.

If the tests show nothing but pain still persists, then whiplash should be suspected.

When a car collides with the back of another car, the necks of people in the front car tilt backward and then bend forward excessively due to the weight of head. Such movement is beyond the cervical spine’s usual range of motion and thus damages discs and ligaments.

If the damage to a disc is severe, it can be detected with an MRI examination.

However, if the damage is limited to the rear ligament of the spine, then it will be difficult to detect even with an MRI, unless the damage is extremely severe.

As the cause of such injuries is not clearly identified, many physicians order patients to wear braces and take pain medication, or undergo physical therapy.

In most cases, the patient’s symptoms improve after two weeks of treatment, but there are cases in which the pain still remains after months of treatment.

The patient might lose trust in the physician if the pain still persists even after being told that diagnostic tests were negative.

This can cause patients to seek alternative methods such as massage or Oriental medicine, which may further worsen the symptoms if the root cause is not treated properly.

In the case of whiplash, the main cause of pain is due to damage to the cervical facet joint (the joint connecting the spinal vertebrae and allowing them to rotate) and to the articular capsule and ligaments.

If the pain is not gone after a few weeks of medication and physical therapy treatment, then more aggressive treatment should be considered, such as nerve block injection therapy or prolotherapy, which strengthens the ligament of the cervical facet joint.

Nerve block therapy involves directly injecting the medication to the nerve site, which improves blood circulation and returns the nerve’s status to normal.

Prolotherapy is injecting highly-concentrated glucose to the cervical facet joint, stimulating cell activation and proliferation.

This therapy is considered a fundamental treatment as it not just controls the pain temporarily, but ultimately strengthens the tissue.

This treatment is usually performed two to three times depending on the condition; it takes effect quickly because it treats the lesion directly.

Also, the procedure takes very little time and doesn’t require hospitalization.

Many patients who have been in minor car accidents usually regard the pain as just a minor aftereffect and so choose their own treatment method or stick to basic treatment even though the pain still persists.

In such cases, these decisions can worsen the condition and might necessitate more complicated treatment.

Thus, it is recommended to consult with a spine specialist who will use proper treatment methods to treat the pain in the early stages of the injury.

The writer is the spine specialist at Bumin Hospital Seoul in Gangseo District.