Fargo ND Whiplash Treatment and Vertigo

Some of our Fargo patients report dizziness or vertigo after a car wreck. There are four major causes of this type of symptom after a car crash.

The most frequent cause of dizziness is because of neck trauma - or what's called cervicogenic dizziness. Your spine consists of thousands of nerves known as proprioceptors, and these nerve fibers tell your brain the location of your body. Proprioceptors are how you can control your body in the dark or with your eyes closed, and are an important part of how your body maintains balance.

When your neck is injured, the proprioceptors can be disrupted, and this important data is no longer available to the postural control system of your brain, resulting in dizziness.

Cervicogenic dizziness normally resolves on its own with specific treatment of the damaged neck tissues.

Another kind of dizziness is called benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, or BPPV. BPPV can be caused by violent movement of your head, as you could very well suffer at the time of a car wreck. Your inner ear contains tiny calcium crystals called otoliths. As you move your head, these crystals move against nerve endings in your inner ear, informing your brain about the position of your head. During a violent motion of your head, these otoliths can essentially be jarred from their normal position to other parts of your inner ear. There, they send impulses to your brain that don't make sense, which causes confusion in your postural control system, and dizziness.

People with BPPV often report vertigo that appears when they move their head and neck in certain ways. Treatment of BPPV is done with a simple procedure called the Epley Maneuver, which positions your head to move the otoliths back to their normal position.

The third possible cause of dizziness after a car crash is vascular damage. Sometimes, the arteries of the neck are injured, causing restricted blood flow to the brain. This type of injury is often felt as a pain in the back of the head that becomes more intense over time, and it can be on either side of the head or in the middle. Sometimes the pain is felt as dull, and other times it might feel like a rise in pressure or a throbbing sensation.

This is an extremely serious type of injury and it's very important to seek medical attention right away if you have these signs or symptoms.

The fourth potential kind of vertigo is brain injury. If your head struck something at the time of the accident or if the collision was very bad, you can suffer a mild traumatic brain injury. If you experienced a brain injury, you might experience fuzzy thinking, confusion, vertigo, or memory loss after the collision. It's critical that you seek medical attention if you currently have these symptoms.

Chiropractic is a well-known, successful way to help people with dizziness, and we've been helping these types of injuries in Fargo, ND since 2008.

If you have been in a motor vehicle accident and have signs of back pain, Dr. Pozarnsky is here to help. We can help establish the underlying cause of your problem and develop a treatment plan to help you restore your health. We have helped many patients in Fargo, ND recover from these types of problems.

Call our office today at (701) 893-7878  for a consultation or for more advice.