Does this sound familiar? It’s a fictional but a rather typical scenario affecting thousands of American drivers:

“Last week, I was waiting at a red light and a car came up from behind and ran into the back end of my car. It was a low-speed collision without a lot of damage to either of our cars. Surprisingly, I felt quite a jolt and my head even hit the headrest. I didn’t bother getting the name or phone number from the person that hit me because I didn’t hurt at the time, and besides, there was no real damage that I could see to my car or the other person’s car.

“About a half hour later, I noticed my neck felt stiff when I turned to check traffic on my right, and I felt really sharp pain before I could turn the whole way. The pain was bad enough to make me yell, and when I brought my head back to the front, the pain didn’t go away – in fact, it felt worse. When I woke up the next day, I could hardly turn my head at all, and I had a terrible headache. The pain was so bad that even four Advil didn’t touch it.

“I couldn’t decide what type of doctor to see for this. I knew if I went to my family doctor, he’d put me on a bunch of pills, but I have to drive forty-five minutes to my job and I have two small kids that require my attention. I had seen an ad for a chiropractor a while back and I wondered what they would do for something like this. I knew I had to do something and fast!

“So I decided to go to a chiropractor a friend of mine recommended and I was really surprised when I got there. The doctor was really attentive and seemed to know exactly what was going on. It was explained to me that I may have been hurt MORE than I might have been had the speed of the other car been going even faster because crushing metal absorbs the shock where in my case, no car damage resulted in more shock to me. This made sense because I had some books on the other seat that flew off when I was hit, which I forgot about until we were talking. I also learned that even if I knew I was going to get hit, I wouldn’t have been able to brace myself enough to avoid injury as the speed of the force moves the head and neck quicker than what I can tighten my muscles. The chiropractor showed me some charts that helped explain all this and why my neck hurt and where the headaches come from. I also learned NEVER assume that ‘no car damage’ means ‘no injury.’

“The best part was right after the adjustment, I felt immediate improvement with better movement and less pain. I was also told to put ice on my neck, which helped a lot more than heat. I’m now doing exercises and really feel good! I can’t tell you how happy I am that I chose a chiropractor to help me!”