Laura has been my patient for a while now. She is a ray of sunshine, and she came in a couple of months ago after a terrible car accident in which the car flipped and rolled several times.
The hospital released her with no apparent injuries after different medical exams. But she couldn’t deny her pain: they weren’t just in her head. Her legs, shoulders, back, her digestion, and her pounding head were creating a myriad of symptoms. She was so tired–no sleep was enough. She couldn’t focus on anything for a long time or be exposed to bright light or noisy/busy environments.
A Car Crash: the Osteopathic Point of View:
We often assume that traumas/shocks are transmitted in a straight line in the body, but the body reacts to impacts in many ways. Each connective tissue assimilates and transmits the forces of the impact differently, sometime in illogical directions.
Think of a house after an earthquake, the house being the body; the house is still up, and can look fine from the outside but the whole structure has been affected in many ways, and is now very fragile. For the body to “keep the house up” is very costly in energy, this is why patients feel so drained, and don’t seem to be able to regenerate through sleep.
The body tries to absorb the impact by creating adaptations to maintain a relatively balanced pain free new equilibrium within itself. The success of this procedure in the body depends on:
- The type of trauma ( direct/indirect, acceleration/deceleration, angle of the impact, foreseeing the event…)
- Previous injuries ( traumatic or sports related)
- Cumulative effects
- State at the moment of the trauma (Fatigue, Emotional state…)
After the event, the nervous system will also be impaired through the proprioception system (perception of where the body parts are in space through receptors in the muscles, ligaments, going to the nervous system). This will impair the joints, the guts, and the cranio-sacral system by a disinformation of the nervous centers of the body leading to poor muscle contraction and coordination, affecting the balance of the body.
When I first saw Laura, her body was in shock, her nervous system was “stuck” in a fight or flight state. This happens when our central nervous system gets off balance; the orthosympatic system becomes dominant getting the blood to the limbs increasing the lung function and heart function to help us run away from the threat.
The treatment goal is then to restore the balance of the central nervous system, help patients to slow down and give enough time for the body to do its job: “heal itself”. We also deal with the different joints/body parts affected through the pathway of the shock wave; each patient is very different, no matter how similar the accident can be.
After a couple of treatments, Laura has been starting to feel her usual self, her energy level has increased and pain is almost gone. She is now getting ready for her wedding this summer.
After a car accident or a fall, it’s recommended to see your Osteopathic Manual Therapist as soon as possible after seeing your Doctor if necessary, in order to deal with the adaptation of the body before the damage becomes too important. We always have emergency appointment space for these cases; make sure to give us a call in these cases. Otherwise, you can always book an appointment with us right here.
Tissues preserve the memory of the traumas through a conscious and unconscious psychological reaction, caused by our self-preservation instinct. This is how a traumatic accident can awaken the memory of another one.