THE PATIENTS  WHIPLASH SITE

What you need to know about

"REMODELING"

Remodeling refers to the bodies ability to restore tissue to normal after it repairs an injury with scar tissue. Have you ever had a scar that gradually faded or even disappeared over a long period of time? Most people have and that process is called "remodeling".

In a whiplash type injury the first stage of inflammation, where the tissue is hot and swollen, includes repairing the torn tissue as rapidly as possible using scar tissue. The SECOND stage of inflammation is where the body tries to restore the tissue to normal. Especially replacing the scar tissue with more normal muscle, ligament and tendon. Scar tissue is less flexible, more pain sensitive, more easily injured and does not allow normal strength and movement. When it is laid down in the critical movement areas of the neck following a whiplash it can permanently affect the way that neck moves. That is the primary reason whiplash can have such long term symptoms and can lead to severe degeneration of the vertebra and discs.

So the key to recovery is to encourage as much remodeling as possible. There is a window of opportunity in the months following an accident when the body is trying to go through the second "remodeling" stage of inflammation. The way the body gets the feedback it needs to know how to build normal tissue is through maintaining the proper joint movement in the neck through chiropractic care. Exercise can help that some but does not address the movement of individual joints the way chiropractic does. Time after time we have seen that if careful chiropractic is continued through the remodeling phase the chance of permanent problems is greatly reduced.