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How Serious Is a Chest Contusion and How Can I Treat It?

Following a car accident, you may suffer from several injuries, such as a chest contusion, that do not show immediate symptoms.

A chest contusion may cause minor pain or bruising if your chest encountered the seat belt or steering wheel during a car accident. Though you may feel fine, the symptoms of a chest contusion can become more severe over time.

Learn more about the seriousness of chest contusions and how they are treated from our team at Impact Medical Zephyrhills.

What is a Chest Contusion?

Chest contusions are caused by a direct blow to the chest and often occur during a car accident. A forceful blow to the chest can damage the blood vessels in the chest, and there may also be direct damage to the heart, lungs, liver, spleen, and airways.

Many victims of chest contusions can walk around the scene of the accident after the injury because the symptoms and complications can take time to develop.

Symptoms and Complications of Chest Contusions

If you have a chest contusion, you will likely suffer pain in the chest that may radiate to the surrounding area. Pain in the ribs, cartilage, and muscles can be caused by trauma to the chest and can be quite uncomfortable throughout the recovery process.

The symptoms of chest contusions include:

• Pain and tenderness
• Bruising
• Swelling
• Stiffness
• Broken ribs
• Injured muscles
• Difficulty breathing
• Pain with or without movement
• Muscle tightness

Complications of chest contusions include:

Difficulty breathing: You may find it difficult to take a deep breath if the lungs or the surrounding tissue were damaged. Some chest contusions can also prevent one side of the chest from moving, making it quite hard to breathe deeply.

Bruising of the heart: A myocardial contusion or bruising to the heart can constrict the heart’s ability to pump blood and in severe cases can result in death.

Internal bleeding: Internal bleeding can also be caused by a chest contusion, including bleeding into the lungs which can cause swelling and difficulty breathing.

In some cases, these symptoms will show up immediately after the accident, but in many cases, patients may notice symptoms and pain increasing steadily in the days following the accident. Prompt medical treatment is important to diagnose and can help prevent the possible complications of a chest contusion.

Treating Chest Contusions

Following a car accident, it is important to seek medical treatment immediately, even if you don’t think you are injured.

Treatment for chest contusions may include:

Rest

You must let your injury heal and refrain from heavy lifting or exercise. Sometimes, depending on the severity of your injuries, you may be restricted from returning to work or participating in exercise or strenuous activities until your injuries fully heal.

Pain Medication

A great deal of pain can be caused by a chest contusion with severe bruising. Some people may even have broken ribs. Pain medication may be required to manage the pain from a chest contusion, but it is important to remember that pain medications can have some adverse side effects like drowsiness and decreased mental function.

Protecting the Injured Area

Further trauma can make the damage to your chest worse, resulting in a long and painful recovery. It is important to protect the injured area and take it easy as you heal.

Stretching

Careful stretching can help restore mobility after an injury, including a chest contusion. It is important to start slowly to ensure that you do not aggravate or worsen your injury.

Remember, it can take weeks or months to fully heal from a chest contusion, so take your time, allow your body to heal, and call our team at Impact Medical Zephyrhills for compassionate physical therapy and car accident care.

Were You in a Car Accident?

If you have been in a car accident and have suffered from a chest contusion, seek medical attention from our team at Impact Medical Zephyrhills. Our doctors and physical therapists can create a treatment plan that will help you on your road to healing.

Call us to schedule an appointment with our friendly team at Impact Medical Zephyrhills today; 813-737-7965!

Injured in a Pedestrian Accident? Do This Now

Many people are injured in auto accidents every day, but there is also another type of accident that can take place during a car accident that you may not be familiar with. A pedestrian accident can be an even more traumatic accident with more significant injuries than anyone inside a car. When pedestrians are struck by a vehicle, they’re completely unprotected by injury prevention technology such as airbags and seatbelts. 

The pedestrian accident injury and recovery professionals at Impact Medical Lutz have helped numerous patients that are injured when struck by a car, truck, or SUV treat their injuries through expert and compassionate care. If you’ve experienced an injury from a pedestrian accident, it’s critical to your health and wellness that you understand what to do right away. 

Here at Impact Medical, we treat pedestrian accident patients all the time. So, we’ve put together our expert tips on what to do the moment after you realize you’ve been injured in a pedestrian accident. 

Let’s dive in. 

Seek Out Medical Attention.

After being involved in a pedestrian accident, the first thing you want to do is seek out professional and expert medical attention from experts trained to diagnose your injury properly. Even if you don’t think you’ve been injured, you never know what injury, sprain, or other more severe injuries may be lurking underneath the surface. 

Why Is the First Step The Most Important?

Because when you’re involved in a pedestrian accident, any injuries you may sustain might not show up right away. But they can also worsen over time when they go unaddressed. Without being treated, these types of injuries can actually cause a long list of long-term problems and even possibly lead to disabilities. So, whether you notice any injuries or not, it’s critical that you seek chiropractic and accident injury care as soon as possible. By doing this, you can maintain good health and avoid things like severe and chronic pain. 

Some Benefits of Chiropractic Care For Your Pedestrian Accident Injury.

Receiving specialized chiropractic and recovery care after you’ve been involved in a pedestrian accident comes with many different benefits. Here are some of the benefits that the recovery specialists at Impact Medical Lutz can bring to your recovery process: 

• Help improve your posture. 
• Improve your immune system.
• Elevate your mood. 
• Improve your sleep. 
• Reduce and treat your pain effectively.
• Reduce and lower your stress. 
• Promote long-term healing and recovery. 
• Reduce chronic pain and discomfort. 

When you trust your recovery to the professionals at Impact Medical Lutz, we work with you to create a custom-tailored and comprehensive care plan that will address every injury you may have sustained during your accident. This way, we can get to the root cause of your injury and not be just treating symptoms and ensuring that your plan won’t cause side effects or further injury. 

Stop Living with Pedestrian Accident Pain.

If you have been injured in a pedestrian accident, be sure that you call our Impact Medical team in Lutz first. Our staff is here to help you optimize your recovery through personalized and professional medical care. 

Your road to wellness starts here… so, give us a call today at (786)-789-3171.

Is Voice Dictation Really Safer Than Texting While Driving?

Since the advent of texting, car accidents involving texting and driving have become common. You hear a ping on your cell phone and may believe that sending a quick text while driving is no big deal, or maybe you might assume that using voice dictation instead of typing allows you to be safer. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be more wrong. In fact, distracted drivers, whether texting or voice dictating, are more dangerous than drunk drivers!

Our team at Impact Medical Sun City Center discusses why it is best to put your cell phone away until you reach your destination, regardless of voice dictation capabilities.

Distracted Driving

Texting is one of the most unsafe things that you can do behind the wheel because it causes you to drive distracted. Sadly, distracted driving is one of the leading causes of car accidents and fatalities.

Of course, there is the technology to text by voice dictation rather than using your fingers, but it is not any safer to do while driving. You’re still distracted.

In a Texas A&M Transportation Institute study, it was found that drivers who used voice-to-text on their iPhones and Android phones and drove on a closed course were no safer using the voice technology than they were if they were texting manually.

Why? Because the problem here is not the activity itself, rather it is the level of distraction. Formulating and dictating a text message with voice text requires just as much concentration as typing one. The bottom line is that when texting, whether manually or with voice messaging, drivers aren’t watching the road properly which leads to slower reaction times and accidents.

Cognitive Distraction

Yes, voice dictation probably feels safer. After all, your eyes are on the road, and your hands are on the steering wheel. This false sense of security is exactly why texting while driving is so dangerous. You think that it is safer, so you’re willing to do it.

Drivers who talk on the phone or use voice text are more likely to ignore traffic signals and follow other vehicles more closely than they would otherwise. Like daydreaming, texting, or using voice text puts you into a distracted state of tunnel vision that makes your driving more reactive than proactive.

These distractions, known as cognitive distractions, are the most dangerous because they cause you to lose focus which can lead to a crash. When you text with voice dictation, you aren’t responding as you would if you were having a conversation with a passenger in your car, rather you’re navigating phone menus in your head, considering sentence structure, and you may even add punctuation. It’s a lot to do while you’re driving!

Avoid Distracted Driving

Regardless of how a driver texts, their reaction times are double that of other drivers. Sending or reading a text could take your eyes off the road for 5 seconds or more. If you think about it, if you are driving at 55 mph, that’s like driving the entire length of a football field with your eyes closed. You cannot drive safely if you aren’t giving the road your full attention.

It’s simple. To guarantee driver, passenger, and even pedestrian safety, don’t text and drive. That goes for both manual and voice texting. Federal data notes that about 3,300 people die each year in accidents attributed to distracted driving; please don’t contribute to the problem!

Injured Due to Distracted Driving?

If you have been injured in a car accident due to another person’s distracted driving and negligence, visit our car accident clinic at Impact Medical Sun City Center. Our doctors, chiropractors, and physical therapists will help you begin your recovery journey.

Don’t delay. Come visit us in Sun City Center or call our team to make an appointment today; 813-938-5195!

Can I Really Get Injured in A Low-Speed Accident?

Following a low-speed accident in Zephyrhills you may hear a lot of excuses like: “I barely hit you!” or ”I wasn’t even going fast!” While injuries sustained in car accidents at high speeds are often quite serious, low-speed accidents can cause just as many that can also be debilitating.

A low-speed crash is “low-speed” when a vehicle is going 20-25 miles per hour. Though this number doesn’t seem to be very fast, studies have shown that a rear-end impact at just 5 miles per hour can cause significant injuries.

Learn more about low-speed car accident injuries from our team here at Impact Medical Zephyrhills.

What is a Low-Speed Accident?

Generally, a low-speed car accident refers to a collision that occurs under 10 miles per hour. While the vehicles involved may have little to no damage, the human body often fares much worse. At just 7 miles per hour, a person in the vehicle that was hit may suffer injuries that require the expertise of a medical doctor and a physical therapist.

Though low-impact collisions are often called “fender-benders” due to the minimal external damage to a bumper, side door, or another part of the car, the injuries involved could be quite serious.

Common Injuries in a Low-Speed Car Accident

Several injuries can occur as the result of a low-speed car accident. They include:

Whiplash

Whiplash is a very common car accident injury and occurs when the head snaps forward or backward abruptly or receives a blow.

Symptoms of whiplash include:

Neck stiffness and pain

Low back and shoulder pain

Headache

Lack of concentration

Memory problems

Dizziness

Irritability

Tiredness

Trouble sleeping

Reduced range of motion

Traumatic Brain Injury

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) refers to many types of head injuries including concussions, hematomas, and skull fractures.

Soft Tissue Injuries

Soft tissue injuries sustained in a car accident can include strains, sprains, and tears that can affect the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and skin of those involved.

Herniated Discs

The discs in the spine create a cushion between the vertebrae in the spine. When a person suffers from a herniated disc, it can be quite painful as the jelly-like substance inside the disc begins to leak out. This irritates nerves and can cause numbness, arm or leg pain, and muscle weakness.

Any of the above injuries can require extensive physical therapy that lasts anywhere from a few weeks to several months depending on the extent of the injuries.

What Should You Do if You are Involved in a Low-Speed Accident?

Even if you believe that the accident was minor, or you don’t feel any immediate pain from an accident, you should still seek medical treatment from our team at Impact Medical Zephyrhills. Often, injuries do not manifest for days or even weeks following an accident.

It is important to contact a doctor to get checked as soon as possible after an accident not only to make sure you do not have injuries but also to use your Personal Injury Protection benefits. These expire within 14 days of an accident in the State of Florida, so it is crucial to seek care as soon as you can after an accident.

Were You in a Low-Speed Accident?

Even if you do not feel pain after a low-speed car accident, it is imperative to seek medical treatment as soon as possible following an accident. Our physical therapy team at Impact Medical Zephyrhills is ready to help you heal from whiplash, muscle strains, herniated discs, and more! Come visit us today!

If you have been in a low-speed accident, don’t wait. Call our clinic in Zephyrhills today; 813-737-7965!