In the immediate and distant aftermath of a car accident, your quality of life may be compromised by a host of physical ailments whose symptoms are intense and somewhat debilitating, but whose precise underlying causes are mysterious.

Getting to the heart of his ailments seems the most impossible, since his recurring complaints occur throughout his body, especially in his neck/head region. Also, your moments of sharp pain come and go randomly or stay with you constantly, a silent restlessness that comes on and off. Occasionally, you find yourself inexplicably bedridden and/or lethargic, irritable, and throbbing.

You can’t pinpoint the source of your problem and, unfortunately, neither can your doctor. The results of his most recent battery of tests say nothing is wrong with him. But you know better.

You may be among the estimated 50 million Americans with undiagnosed thyroid conditions caused by musculoskeletal trauma. A more common condition than widely believed, an underperforming or underperforming thyroid can negatively affect your metabolism, energy levels, mood, immune system, brain functions, and can further exacerbate your general physical aches and pains. General musculoskeletal pain and neck pain in particular are symptoms and Causes of thyroid problems. That is how.

Essentially, neck trauma can affect your thyroid and subsequently expose you to a wider variety of physical ailments. Your affected thyroid becomes the source of more physical pain. In short, musculoskeletal trauma engenders bodily pain and disrupts the thyroid, which leads to more musculoskeletal pain. This is how the debilitating cycle occurs.

Research done a few years ago found connections between trauma from car accidents and thyroid injuries and hypothyroidism.[1] Drivers who survived car accidents realized years later that the accidents had injured their thyroid glands, which in turn created problems that persisted long after the bones had healed. Meanwhile, the subjects experienced visceral pain that seemed to emanate from nowhere. Worse yet, when her doctors ran thyroid tests, the results were normal. The doctor and the patient were at a loss, so the doctor simply prescribed painkillers to the patient. The drugs only masked the pain, never getting to the core problem. This is because treating injury trauma without evaluating the adverse effects of trauma on the thyroid will not necessarily cancel out the pain. Patients who have endured years of painkillers and various therapies targeting only their physical trauma can potentially find themselves plagued with pain indefinitely, the underlying cause being a subtle undiagnosed thyroid issue precipitated by the initial trauma.

Fortunately, these scenarios do not have to be this way. Relying on pain relievers and other prescriptions that simply cover up the symptoms and never address the underlying problem isn’t the only option. A first step in discovering and addressing what is really wrong might involve discovering and undergoing a new set of tests and evaluations.

Of greater value is the need to address chronic pain issues in a way that takes advantage of prevailing medical knowledge without limiting people to a simple paradigm of diagnosis = prescription drugs. Physicians with this mindset dedicated themselves to helping chronic pain patients eradicate the causes of chronic pain in hopes of arming them with a means to take preventative action.

Getting to the root of problems requires asking a lot of questions and getting to know the patient and their medical history. The use of questionnaires that assess the hormonal system, the immune system, the digestive system and metabolic systems in general is key. Taking into account what information is gained from the research process allows your doctor to determine the right series of diagnostic tests to get to the heart of what is causing your pain.

Often, therapies are chosen to address the delicate balance of neurological and metabolic factors that underlie chronic pain. Because thyroid problems are often caused or caused by slightly mismatched metabolic/neurologic ratios in any one patient, the preferred approach targets these specifically and holistically. This is what sets my suggested approach to musculoskeletal pain apart from that of other specialists.

Chiropractic doctors do not use medications of any kind or perform surgery. The key is isolating the unique balance between the thyroid and the whole body, finding out what’s wrong, and correcting it. Easier said than done, but not impossible. The main benefit is that you remain fully in charge of your abilities and you won’t have to bother with the perpetual confusion that pain meds often induce.

Some prominent therapies that are helpful in relieving general musculoskeletal pain include:

• chiropractic structural adjustment which focuses on the nervous system and the relationship of the spine and the nervous system to each other AND the relationship between the nervous system and ALL other functions of the body.
• WAVE-Advanced Whole Body Vibration Exercise: Based on techniques used with cosmonauts to prevent bone mineral loss after space exploration, Whole Body Vibration (WBV) is the equivalent of safely performing thousands of muscle contractions per minute. Benefits include increased metabolism (thyroid), improved flexibility and bone density, and decreased chronic pain.
• Cold LASER Therapy (Low Level Laser Therapy or LLLT): LLLT therapy is an FDA-approved treatment that has been shown to decrease pain and inflammation, speed healing, and more. By directing specific frequencies of LASER and near-infrared light at the body, this painless treatment can speed up the healing process and increase circulation. LLLT has been clinically shown to help with carpal tunnel syndrome, peripheral neuropathy, RSDS, fibromyalgia, and other painful conditions.

Take heart and know that you have options and hope when dealing with unrelenting pain after a car accident. His victory over his health challenge is at hand. Take the first step toward better health today.

References:

1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12917086