Here’s How an Accident Can Affect Your Muscles

In the days following a car accident, you’ll likely feel aches and pains from injuries that might not have been apparent at the time of the accident. If you are suffering from muscle pain, it is important to learn if you are experiencing muscle soreness versus a muscle injury after your accident.

That’s where our team at Impact Medical Wesley Chapel comes in! If you have recently suffered a car accident, learn how to distinguish between muscle soreness and a serious injury.

We’ll discuss how an accident can affect your muscles, how muscle injuries are treated, and how physical therapy can prevent chronic pain. Let’s go!

How Long Should Soreness Last After an Accident?

Depending on the severity of the accident and the injuries sustained, most car accident victims feel sore for up to six weeks after a car accident. Of course, this will vary depending on:

Any pre-existing injuries or conditions
Your position inside the vehicle
The speed and severity of the collision
The size of the vehicles involved
The diagnosis from a doctor
Whether you were wearing a seatbelt

Common Causes of Muscle Pain and Soreness

There are over 600 muscles, 900 ligaments, and 4,000 tendons in your body. That’s a lot of soft tissues, and any one of them can be damaged in a car accident.

The most common cause of muscle pain and soreness after an accident is due to overstretching and tearing, also called a muscle strain. The sudden impact of a car accident can cause muscle fibers to tear, causing swelling and inflammation at the injury site.

Inflammation then irritates the nerves surrounding the muscle fibers, causing pain, burning, or tingling. Keep in mind that inflammation can take a few days to develop, which is why some muscle injury symptoms can take 24-49 hours to appear.

Common Muscle Injuries

A car accident can cause a range of damage to your muscles, which are most commonly referred to as soft tissue injuries. These can include:

Bruises and contusions: Mild soft tissue damage caused by the rupture of blood capillaries beneath the skin’s surface.
Strains and sprains: Injuries caused by the tearing of muscles and ligaments
Whiplash: A type of neck injury caused by the stretching and tearing of some of all of the muscles, ligaments, and tendons in the spine.
Airbag or seat belt injuries: Compression injuries are often caused by airbags or seat belts that restrict the soft tissues in the chest and abdomen.
Joint injuries: Broken or displaced bones in a joint can often be accompanied by a torn muscle or ligament that has pulled the joint out of place. Common in spinal injuries.

Treating Muscle Soreness

Soreness is normal after the trauma that your body experienced in a car accident. However, muscle aches and fatigue should never be ignored. If you are experiencing sore muscles after an accident, you should visit a doctor to ensure that you don’t have any severe injuries.

Physical therapy may not always be a requirement after an accident, but it is quite beneficial to help your muscles start to heal. Physical therapy can be used to help with the stiffness and limited range of motion that accompany many injuries sustained in a car accident. Ultimately, it will help you build back muscle healthily and safely.

Manual therapy can also be beneficial to healing muscles as it can help reduce tension and inflammation in your muscles while they heal. If you are experiencing back pain in conjunction with your muscle soreness, chiropractic adjustments may be prescribed by your doctor.

Bottom line? Physical therapy can help prevent long-term damage that can occur due to muscle injuries such as chronic pain and migraines, allowing you to live a pain-free life.

Say Goodbye to Muscle Soreness

If you have been in a car accident and are experiencing any kind of muscle soreness, you should seek treatment as soon as possible. Our team at Impact Medical Wesley Chapel can create a treatment plan that includes manual, physical therapy, or chiropractic adjustments to get you on the road to healing today.

Say goodbye to muscle soreness and call Impact Medical Wesley Chapel to schedule an appointment today; (813) 953-1002!