Dizziness After a Car Accident – What Does it Mean?

Dizziness following a car accident can be caused by a variety of injuries and conditions. The injuries can range from fairly mild and easily treated, to more severe. If you are experiencing dizziness after an accident you should schedule an appointment and come in to see a chiropractor. We recommend anyone who has been involved in an accident come in for a checkup – but if you are actually experiencing dizziness, we definitely encourage you to stop in. Our team can help to determine what is causing your symptoms, and get you much-needed relief.

Causes of Dizziness After Your Accident – From Your Auto Accident Chiropractor

As your auto accident chiropractor, we can not only diagnose you but help you recover from your dizziness and any other injuries you have sustained. Your symptoms may be caused by:

Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo (BPPV)

Otoliths are minute crystals of calcium in your inner-ear that help to tell your brain where your head is positioned. When you are in a car accident, these tiny crystals can become dislodged from their normal location and cause serious problems with your sense of balance. When pushed to another part of the inner ear, they fire their signals as they would normally – only their new position means the signals are incorrect, leading to vertigo.

Using specific treatments that help move the otoliths back to their proper position, we should be able to help you recover from your BPPV symptoms.

Neck Damage (Cervicogenic Dizziness)

Proprioceptors are the nerves that help your brain understand where your body is. Running down your neck, proprioceptors can become damaged in a car accident. You may not only feel neck pain and stiffness, you may also experience dizziness because your proprioceptors are damaged, confusing your brain.

Treatments designed to help your neck tissues heal should resolve the damage to your proprioceptors.

Restricted Bloodflow

Damage to the vascular system in your head can cause disruption of the normal blood flow to your brain, which can lead to dizziness. The symptoms of vascular damage often show up as pain in the back of the head, although it can also show up in other areas of the head. If you have significant pain in your head, whether the back, sides or front, you should seek help as soon as you can. Vascular damage is a serious condition that needs to be treated immediately.

If you are experiencing severe pain in your head, we advise seeking medical attention right now – do not wait for an appointment, go to the doctor immediately.

Traumatic Brain Injury

A traumatic brain injury (TBI) can cause dizziness. TBI can be caused by your head striking an object in the car accident, or by your brain hitting the side of your skull during the accident. Even mild TBI requires medical care. Other symptoms of TBI can include difficulty thinking clearly, sleepiness, loss of memory and irritability.

If you suspect that you may have a brain injury, it is important that you seek medical care. Your injury might be quite minor, but it could also be more severe than you realize. It is better to be safe than sorry when it comes to potential brain injuries.

Treatment from Your Edmonds WA Chiropractor

As your Edmonds WA chiropractor, we are well-equipped to treat your dizziness following a car accident. Our team has worked with numerous car accident victims, many of which experienced symptoms including dizziness. Chiropractic care and associated treatments are often extremely effective for dizziness and other car accident injuries.

Treatments we may offer include:

Chiropractic Adjustments

Car accidents are notorious for causing subluxations – misalignments of the vertebrae that can put pressure on nerves and cause a variety of unpleasant symptoms. Using careful, targeted pressure, we can realign the vertebrae and encourage your neck and back to heal.

Massage Therapy

Using massage therapy, we can increase blood flow to your injury site while minimizing muscle spasms and tightness. Massage can help your body to relax and make it easier to heal.

Corrective Exercises

Physical therapy is an important part of recovery following a car accident. Our goal is to help you get stronger so you can support your injury better, speeding up healing times, improving your mobility and helping you prevent similar injuries int eh future.

Schedule an Appointment with Your Car Accident Doctor

If you are suffering from dizziness after your car accident, please give us a call at 425-361-1839. Come get relief from your car accident doctor in Edmonds, WA.