Motor vehicle crashes can injure numerous areas of the body and cause various types of pain. While many of us associate pain as a “ouch” type of feeling, it can also be experienced as an abnormal tightness, pulling, or pressure sensation. Sometimes it causes pain in areas that can be hard to describe and localize such as pain around the shoulder blades and deep to them, or back and hip pain that just isn’t getting better.
If you have been experiencing pain like this, it may be from something more serious than just sore muscles, even if that’s what it feels like. There are several types of injuries that can cause pain to radiate1-3 into these areas and could include torn or ruptured discs in your spine, torn ligaments, injury to facet joints, or other structures.
Medical imaging can play an important role in determining the nature of these injuries, but much of it still comes down to experience working with complicated injuries, and good communication between the patient and doctor.
If you have been in a motor vehicle crash and are experiencing the following symptoms, give us a call at Portland Whiplash & Spine and let us help you:
- headaches
- neck pain
- back pain
- radiating pain
- or any combination of numbness, tingling, or weakness
References:
- Feinstein, B., et al.,Experiments on pain referred from deep somatic tissues. J Bone Joint Surg Am, 1954. 36-A(5): p. 981-97.
- Aprill, C., A. Dwyer, and N. Bogduk, Cervical zygapophyseal joint pain patterns. II: A clinical evaluation. Spine (Phila Pa 1976), 1990. 15(6): p. 458-61.
- Kellgren, J.,On distribution of pain arising from deep somatic structures with charts of segmental pain areas. Clin Sci, 1939(4): p. 35-46.
