Effective treatment and pain-relief for the whiplash claimant

While making a whiplash claim is the best way for someone who has suffered a whiplash neck sprain in a car accident to deal with the financial fallout of their injury, there are a number of things that the sufferer can do to alleviate symptoms.

Taking basic over-the-counter painkillers such as paracetamol and ibuprofen will offer relief to those with mild symptoms while prescription medications like diclofenac, naproxen, or tolfenamic (these are not always recommended for someone suffering with high blood pressure, asthma, kidney or heart failure) are also able to lessen pain and discomfort.

A combination of codeine and paracetamol is frequently prescribed to patients experiencing severe symptoms.

Sometimes, where tension inherent in the whiplash injury is compounding its symptoms, a muscle relaxant such as diazepam will be prescribed in order to give the neck a chance to heal without the obstacle of excessive stiffness.

Many people who make whiplash claims choose to spend some or all of their compensation awards on specialist treatment for their injury. Whether chiropractic, osteopathy, physiotherapy or some other form of intervention, the respective effectiveness of these treatments for whiplash is still open to debate.

Although some studies into their effectiveness have reported a link between treatment and recovery, others report no or negligible effect. Making the picture even more complicated, some report a link between intensive treatment and a slowing in recovery time. Unfortunately, all this confusing situation does is show us that there are no easy answers.

One thing most medical experts agree on, however, is that a program of gentle neck exercises will generally be of benefit to the sufferer.

So long as it is done safely and in consultation with a doctor, exercise should result in no serious complications.

This does not mean that there are no exercise-related complications to look out for. Some of these are as follows:

Dizziness, vertigo, confusion or disorientation, impaired or blurred vision, blackouts, pain or numbness in the arm, and severe or persistent pain.

Details of specific exercises are best left to the experts, but there are some general rules that hold true for all whiplash-alleviating exercises.

• Only perform the exercises while fully relaxed.
• Perform the exercises using smooth, fluid motions rather than stop-start, jerking motions.
• Expect some level of reasonable discomfort and aim to work through it.
• Expect some cracking or popping noise in the neck in the early phases of exercise. After a while, this will usually go away.
• Perform exercises around three times a day.
• Perform the neck-specific exercises in conjunction with general exercises in order to promote postural and muscular balance in the body.

Road accident injury solicitors
YouClaim's team of no win, no fee solicitors contains a number of experienced whiplash claim specialists, all with a proven track record of success.

Governed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, their services are available to you at absolutely no cost. Win or lose, our terms and conditions mean that you will never have to pay any party a single penny in order to fund your claim.

In addition, if your claim is a success, we guarantee to never take a cut of your compensation award.

If you would like to contact us today, you may wish to fill out an online claim form or chat with one of our team by using e-chat.

Alternatively, if you would like to speak to someone about your whiplash claim now, simply call 0800 10 757 95.