Whiplash is a crossroad for many. The degree and the consequences can be very different. However, for most people it is a life changer. The body must come first, other things like daily duties and personal accomplishments become secondary.
Let us begin with how whiplash accidents and injuries occur. It is commonly associated with car accidents. Usually a whiplash accident occurs when one motor vehicle strikes another from behind. However, the injury may occur in many other ways, like through practising bungee jumping, falls, headbanging and horse riding, in fact is so common that, as a therapist, I would assume you already do suffer from whiplash if you ride horses. Whiplash is one of the main injuries covered by the insurance, 430,000 people made an insurance claim for whiplash in 2007 in England alone. Birth an pregnancy complications can result in a whiplash, and it is very common, some will correct itself some do not.
Good advice, if you have an accident, ALWAYS go to the emergency and file a complain about neck pain, in many cases, the pain will appear weeks after the accident. and then it will be more difficult to make the claim. In Denmark it needs to be done within 24 hours.
Consequences of whiplash could be head ache, vertigo, dizziness, tired, jaw tension, shoulder, neck and back pain, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, digestion problems, frustration, memory loss. constant stress. Because of the whiplash the victim does not have the ability to relax. This can result sensitivity to stressful situations, like family gatherings, job situations, the ability to handle stress is just not sufficient to handle many daily situations. Of course this differ a lot from person to person cause to the degree of the whiplash.
But even though you only recognize some of the symptoms you can still have a whiplash, and maybe treatment could be beneficial.
What can be done, the manual therapy on a whiplash is always very gentle, no sudden movement, or pressure is welcome in my opinion.
The nervous system needs to be relaxed in most cases the position of some cranial bones and in the hip needs to be corrected because it is pressing the nerves this gives tremendous amount of stress.
The rcpm muscles for sure needs attention. (You can see them above)
Vomer needs to be corrected often this is the cause of vertigo, dizziness if not the neck will get stiff again.
Cranial bones specially Sphenoid, Occipital, Zygomatic and the Temporal bone needs correction.
In most cases I hardly do any work on the neck itself, because it is unnecessary, so the relaxation comes from the mentioned corrections.
OK that was my brief take on whiplash hope you enjoyed it, i hope to see you one day here, and please note that there is hope even for something as complex as a whiplash.
Ps i will put a youtube video on facebook altea-massage of a cranial where you can see the cranial movement and Vomer is present also.