Auto accidents can cause major personal injury to both driver and passenger alike. These injuries can range from head and neck damage to lower spinal problems to severe lacerations and scrapes. But on occasion, personal injuries aren’t so obvious since they take the form of nerve damage.
One of the most common auto accident-related injuries that isn’t apparent to the naked eye is a pinched nerve. Says County Line Chiropractic, an accident injury clinic in Pembroke Pines, Florida, if you’ve been putting up with persistent, unexplained pain after an accident, you just might have a pinched nerve. A pinched nerve occurs when something presses against a certain nerve in your body and interferes with the nerve’s normal function.
While pinched nerves are most commonly realized on the wrist and especially the spine, they can happen anywhere on the body. As for the back, a chiropractor will help alleviate the pain by making spinal adjustments that realigns your vertebrae.
But pinched nerves aren’t the only nerve damage you can get from being the victim of a bad auto accident. According to a recent report, while a car accident can take place in a flash of a second or two, it can result in “a lifetime of trauma.” Victims can end up suffering with substantial nerve damage. In fact, there are over 100 types of nerve-related damage that range from mild to acute.
Defining Nerve Damage Injuries
Your nervous system is made up of a wide-ranging network that controls every function your body undertakes. Nerves are like wires that are required for thousands of basic functions, from breathing, to swallowing, to sensation of pain, cold, and heat.
Three different varieties of nerves are found in the human body:
Autonomic Nerves: These control partially voluntary and involuntary functions of the body, including regulating your temperature, pulse, and blood pressure.
Motor Nerves: These control all movement by relaying signals from the brain through the spinal cord and to the muscles.
Sensory Nerves: These monitor pain and sensory perception by using the skin and muscles to signal your spinal cord and brain.
Vehicular accident-related nerve damage occurs when violent trauma results in stretching, compressing, crushing, pinching, or even splicing certain nerves or bundles of nerves. Since correct nerve function is essential to living a normal life, damage to any three nerve types can leave you with a lifetime of pain and/or significant diminished quality of life.
Levels of Nerve Damage Injuries
“Nerve damage” is said to be “an umbrella term” for lots of nerve injury types. When it comes to personal injury litigation, there are three basic levels of nerve damage severity.
Neurapraxia: Said to be the least severe of all nerve injuries caused by an auto accident, neurapraxia occurs when the nerve is damaged but remains intact. Full recovery is expected.
Axonotmesis: This is the next level of nerve damage. It means the trauma has caused the nerve structure to be damaged and can result in either long-term paralysis or permanent motor function and sensory paralysis.
Neurotmesis: Considered the most severe of all never injuries due to vehicular accident, neurotmesis occurs when the nerve or a nerve bundle is completely severed. Permanent damage and life-long paralysis ensues.
Every level of nerve damage can impact a person’s pain levels and quality, or lack thereof, of life.
Symptoms and Causes of Nerve Damage Injury
Car crashes can result in more than 100 varieties of nerve damage. They will vary from patient to patient. These are some of the most common nerve damage symptoms: burning, weakness, severe pain, spasms, tingling, weakness, lack of bowel and/or bladder control, lightheadedness, heavy sweats, paralysis, muscle issues, and more.
Immediately after a car crash, it might be difficult to tell the difference between a sore lower back and actual nerve damage. This is why immediate medical assistance is essential.
Pinched nerves are an all too common result of a car wreck. That said, vehicular accidents can result in damage to just about every portion of the human body. That’s why pinched and/or damaged nerves are a said to be a major worry for many victims of auto accidents.
Nerve damage will occur upon “force of impact” or what’s also known as “blunt force trauma.” The victim’s entire body is smashed against the dashboard, or the steering wheel, or the car door. If the impact is severe enough, crushing injuries occur that will leave nerves damaged, sometimes severely. If bones are broken, even more nerve injury will likely occur.
Nerve damage injuries can occur to the arms, shoulders, hands, feet, legs, face, lower back, and more. In other words, when it comes to serious auto accident-related nerve damage injury, no area of the body is immune. So, buckle up, and obey the rules of the road.
