How a Chiropractor Can Help With Accident-Related Stomach Pain
After a car accident, you are likely to be on high alert for certain injuries, like whiplash or a broken bone, making it easy to miss certain symptoms. You may not realize that gastrointestinal distress, like stomach pain or diarrhea, can be caused by car accidents as well. This can be brought on by a number of reactions or injuries, but it can also be an indicator of serious issues following your accident. Luckily, the same Broomfield chiropractor who would treat a broken bone can help you to diagnose and manage the issue causing your stomach pain.
How Accidents Can Cause Stomach Pain
No matter how minor it was, a car accident can lead to stress and even emotional trauma, which the body may react to in a number of physical ways. In the immediate aftermath, the body is usually flooded with adrenaline that keeps you from noticing any pain as part of your flight or fight response. This hormone couples with shock can mean that for hours after an accident, you are alert and moving normally. Once these effects wear off, you may begin to notice abdominal pain.
One of the main reasons for this pain can be the same seatbelt that kept you safe from other severe injuries. The goal of a seatbelt is to prevent you from being ejected from your vehicle, but when the force of an accident is strong, this can lead to your seatbelt tightening around your waist. With enough force, this can cause bruises, scrapes, and pain in the abdomen. It will be easy to identify external injuries after your crash, but it is important to pay attention to invisible injuries too.
In serious cases, stomach pain can be a sign that your seatbelt has damaged your internal organs. A Broomfield chiropractor will want to rule out internal organ damage and internal bleeding as soon as you present with these symptoms.
Once these issues, known often as “Seatbelt Syndrome”, are ruled out then a chiropractor can explore other reasons for your pain. The typical culprit is either blunt force trauma or penetrating injuries. Blunt force injuries occur when the force from the airbag, seatbelt, or another part of the vehicle hits your abdomen hard enough to cause damage. A penetrating injury means that the skin has been broken, such as by a piece of glass that causes an open wound.
It is also possible for the soft tissue in the abdomen, like muscles and ligaments, to be damaged during impact. If your body was jolted or twisted, these tissues may be sprained or strained, leading to pain.
How a Chiropractor Can Help
So, what do you do after a vehicular accident? You may associate visiting a car accident doctor or chiropractor with injuries to the spine, but they can have an impact on the injuries that cause stomach pain as well. If internal damage is ruled out, a chiropractor can help with any tissue injuries as well as problems that may cause general gastrointestinal distress.
The nervous system and the digestive system are actually very interconnected, meaning that damage to the spine could lead to trouble with your stomach even if it was not directly injured. The thoracic and lumbar areas of your spine partially control how fast or slow your body can digest food, meaning that a misalignment in the spine may cause your stomach to hurt. These misalignments can also cause problems with the absorption of nutrients from your food.
As a chiropractor addresses your spinal damage after an accident, they will likely have a positive impact on your digestive system just from adjustments. As your nervous system is returned to a state of alignment, your digestive system can improve as well.
If internal damage or bleeding has occurred, you will likely need to be referred to a surgeon or other emergency medical professional to address the immediate problem. However, chiropractic care as you heal may help the body to gain strength faster, even after a life-threatening condition like this.
If you have recently been in an accident, whether you are experiencing stomach pain yet or not, a visit to a car accident clinic should be your first step. In addition to ruling out any severe issues, your provider will be able to identify the cause of your pain and begin treatment early on, before any underlying conditions are given time to worsen.