If you or someone you love has experienced a car accident or car accident injuries, you know that the time after an accident can be stressful. Between filing police reports, getting insurance involved, and potentially visiting the emergency room to get checked out, you may not even realize that you have been ignoring a headache and nausea after the car accident. Sure, you may have escaped any major injuries or broken bones, but nausea after a car accident is not a symptom you should ignore. If it didn’t present itself right away, or soon enough to be noted during an emergency room visit, you should call your doctor right away to let them know that you’ve got a headache and nausea following your car accident.
Failing to address these symptoms could mean you’re putting off treating a more severe underlying issue that could pose a more significant risk if not diagnosed by a doctor. Even if your diagnosis is not serious from the start, starting treatment for an underlying issue can save you health, time, and money in the long run.
Why You Might be Experiencing Vomiting or Nausea After a Car Accident
It’s essential to remember that not all symptoms present themselves immediately after a car accident. For example, it can take months for your muscles to adjust to having been in an accident, and you may need physical therapy or chiropractic care months or years after a car accident to address the issues the accident caused. Similarly, you may not feel headaches or nausea after a car accident for hours or up to days after the accident. There can be many issues that present themselves with nausea, vomiting, and/or headaches. In the case that you are vomiting up blood, you need to seek medical help immediately. Most common causes are not life-threatening but still need to be treated by a medical professional. Here are a few of the most common reasons you might have nausea or headaches after an accident:
Whiplash
The severity of whiplash can vary drastically from accident to accident, and so can the symptoms. Changes to neck and back alignment can lead to nausea and headaches. There are also some delayed signs of whiplash to look out for.
Broken Bones
Even though the symptoms seem unrelated, if you’ve broken or fractured a bone, the pain can be so intense that you actually experience nausea or vomiting.
Traumatic Brain Injury
If you hit your head at all during the accident, even if it doesn’t seem severe, and you are now experiencing headaches and nausea, it could be a result of a traumatic brain injury. This needs to be addressed and treated by a doctor as soon as possible.
Concussion
The consequences of a concussion are typically less serious than a traumatic brain injury, but they should be assessed all the same as the symptoms are similar.
Internal bleeding
Damage from internal bleeding due to a car accident can cause headaches, nausea, and vomiting. Internal bleeding can’t be detected except through medical care and intervention.
Digestive System Damage
If your abdominal region was injured or impacted by the car accident, this could cause damage resulting in nausea or vomiting.
Anxiety
Anxiety following a car accident is normal, and symptoms of headaches and nausea are also normal anxiety symptoms.
Things to Do if You Experience Nausea or Headaches After an Accident
Your symptoms may be severe, or they may be mild, but no matter where your symptoms are in the range of nausea and vomiting, you need to seek medical care. If your symptoms are mild, a call to your doctor should suffice. However, if they are more severe, it’s better to seek medical care in an emergency room. Even if you do seek out your primary care physician first, they may determine you need to be referred to a specialist or to additional care. Remember that if you delay calling your doctor, you delay treatment, and you delay your recovery.
Because the causes of nausea and headaches after an accident range so drastically, so can the treatment plans and recovery times. If the nausea and headaches are directly linked to pain, they should subside after the pain is managed. However, concussions and traumatic brain injuries can mean longer recovery and treatment. Only a medical professional will be able to diagnose your condition, recommend a course of treatment, and give you an idea of how long it will take for your nausea and headaches to subside.
How Chiropractic Care Can Help Nausea and Headaches After an Accident
If you’re suffering from muscle pain as a result of whiplash, Affordable Chiropractic in Killeen can offer pain relief through precise chiropractic adjustments to your neck or back. If your pain due to whiplash is causing you prolonged nausea or vomiting, you could be at risk of becoming dehydrated, which only prolongs your symptoms. If you don’t treat your pain as soon as possible, you are prolonging your nausea and vomiting symptoms, only putting you at worse risk of dehydration and other complications.
Before prescribing a treatment plan, our experts at Affordable Chiropractic in Killeen will use their 25 years of car accident treatment knowledge to assess your injuries and recommend a plan accordingly. Because car accident chiropractors don’t typically prescribe drugs or recommend surgery, we’ll work to manage pain and treatment through spinal adjustments. If we think your treatment plan would benefit from medication or surgery, we’ll refer you to an outside specialist. We execute X-Rays and other diagnostic tools to see what the best course of action might be.
Car Accident Care at Affordable Chiropractic Killeen
The time following a car accident can be overwhelming and stressful. You may be concerned with settling with your insurance, caring for others that were in the accident, and resolving getting a rental car so you can go about your daily life. But, it’s important not to let nausea and headaches go untreated. They could be indicators of a more serious, underlying cause. It’s important to see a doctor immediately if you experience these symptoms following an accident.