During a car accident, you may experience injuries like bruising, whiplash, concussion and more. Some of these injuries can lead to nerve damage with symptoms like numbness and tingling. If you’re experiencing prolonged numbness or tingling in your arms, legs or other parts of your body after an accident, you should see a doctor.
A medical professional can diagnose your symptoms and offer the best treatment plan for recovery. Although some symptoms may resolve on their own a few days or weeks after an accident, nerve damage can be permanent if not treated properly.
Thankfully, there are many treatment options available to relieve your pain and help your nerves recover after an accident.
Signs of nerve damage after a car accident may include twitching muscles, weakness, paralysis, radiating pain, tingling and numbness. Because your nervous system is integral to healthy physical function, it’s important to see a doctor for symptoms that suggest nerve damage.
Learn more about the types of nerve damage and what can cause them.
When nerves are pinched or compressed by bones, muscles or tendons, they experience pain and often struggle to communicate with the rest of your body. Your nervous system runs from your brain to the tips of your fingers and toes, and a pinched nerve anywhere along the way can impact systems below it.
That means the pain you feel from a pinched nerve in your neck could be causing muscle weakness in your hands and feet. Other symptoms of pinched nerves include:
If you’re experiencing nerve pain, you should see a doctor quickly for treatment. If a nerve is pinched for too long, it can cause long-term damage and lead to chronic pain. Thankfully, releasing compression on the nerve can relieve discomfort and help with additional symptoms.
Your sciatic nerve runs through your back, hips and down your legs. When this nerve is pinched, it’s extremely painful. Symptoms of a pinched sciatic nerve include your leg going numb, lower back pain and increased pain after sitting. Some people also experience trouble with bladder control or muscle weakness.
In some cases, sciatica will resolve with enough time and rest. However, most people recover faster with medical treatment. Chiropractic care and physical therapy can help reduce pressure on your sciatic nerve, relieving the pain and restoring function to your lower body.
Your spinal column has rubbery discs that sit between the bones and cushion your movement. Each disc has two layers — an outer layer and an inner, gel-like layer. During a crash, your spinal column and these discs can be damaged.
When the outer layer of a disk bulges out of place, it can cause localized pain. This is known as a bulging disk. By contrast, a herniated disc is when the gel-like layer pushes out through the outer layer. Herniated discs are usually much more painful than bulging discs.
If you’re experiencing symptoms of nerve damage or pain along your neck and back, it could be a disc-related issue. You can treat these injuries with physical therapy, massage, medication and surgery. Most bulging discs respond well to noninvasive treatment, while herniated discs more often require surgery.
Many of the nerves in your body are found inside your brain and spinal cord. The rest of your body’s nerves are known as peripheral nerves, and “peripheral neuropathy” is the official term for damage to this part of your nervous system.
Symptoms of peripheral neuropathy include:
Depending on which nerves are impacted by an accident, you may experience other symptoms. Your nerves are involved with bladder function, digestion, sensation, muscle response and more. If you notice that normal activities are challenging after an accident, you should talk to a medical professional about potential nerve damage.
This feels like the pins and needles you experience after your foot or hand “falls asleep.” Normally, movement will restore blood flow, and the feeling goes away. However, after an accident, you can also experience paresthesia if a large group of nerves are damaged.
Usually, this kind of nerve damage affects your arms, hands, legs or feet. It may feel like numbness, tingling or pricking. It’s important to seek medical care immediately if you experience paresthesia after an accident. The earlier you see a doctor, the better your outlook for recovery will be.
While these aren’t the only causes of nerve pain after an accident, they are the most common. You may also experience nerve damage from dislocated bones, spinal cord swelling or other accident injuries. The symptoms of tingling, numbness or muscle weakness will tell you it’s a nerve issue.
In some cases, symptoms of numbness or tingling after an accident may resolve on their own. However, the length of recovery time varies depending on the severity of your injuries after an accident. You need to see a doctor if symptoms persist, have a sudden onset or get worse with time.
Nerve damage can be permanent without intervention. However, there are many treatments available to help restore healthy nerve function. Many of these treatments are noninvasive and can help you recover more quickly from accident trauma.
An injury care doctor can help you sort through treatment options and create a plan of care to restore nerve function.
The right treatment for nerve pain after a car accident depends on its cause. For example, if your symptoms are from a pinched nerve, relieving the pressure should be enough to help your body recover. However, every case is different and requires a unique diagnosis from an injury care doctor.
Other treatments that can help with numbness and tingling include:
If you’re experiencing nerve pain, you should not take pain medication at home and ignore your symptoms. Seeing a doctor so you can receive the proper treatment and have the best recovery outcome is important. Waiting for a long time before getting medical help could lead to permanent nerve damage.
Do you have tingling or numbness after an impact injury? At Complete Care, we offer affordable injury care across Central Florida. We want to help you recover from an accident or workplace injury so you don’t have to live with pain, muscle weakness or other symptoms of damaged nerves.
Our clinics are available for same-day, drop-in and telehealth appointments. We offer diagnostic services, chiropractic care, neurology and more at the same location, so accessing the care you need from diagnosis to treatment is easy. Request an appointment with us today and get relief from tingling or numbness after a car accident.
The information provided on this website does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only. Information on this website may not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. This website contains links to other third-party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser.