Treating Whiplash

What causes whiplash? Whiplash occurs when the soft tissue in the spine is stretched and strained after the body is thrown in a sudden, forceful jerk. The injury most commonly occurs in car crashes involving sudden deceleration, but the injury can also occur in other strenuous physical activities such as diving.

What does whiplash feel like?

The most frequent complaints are headaches and stiffness in the neck and the back of the head. These symptoms appear within the first couple of days after the accident and usually pass after a few days to a few weeks.

Is whiplash dangerous?

A doctor or hospital should be alerted if the patient experiences memory loss or periods of unconsciousness after a collision. This is especially the case if the patient experiences severe pains in the back of the head, pins and needles in the shoulders and arms or notices a sensation of heaviness in the arms.

Is there anything the patient can do about whiplash injury?

In the first 24 hours after the injury, an ice bag applied to the neck will help to relieve inflammation.

Bags of frozen peas make particularly good ice packs because they mould to the body.

An ice bag should first be wrapped in a towel or cloth to avoid direct contact between the skin and the ice. The patient should lie in bed with their head resting on the ice bag for 20 minutes at a time, with the head also supported by a pillow.

If normal painkillers such as paracetamol (eg Panadol) do not help, consult your GP.

Here’s an exercise to relieve pain and stiffness in the neck and back of the head.

Stand against a door or a wall with your head facing forward and move your eyes so you look towards the two, four, eight, and 10 o’clock positions. Repeat this a few times. This eye movement causes a slight movement in some deep muscles in the back of the head.
Next, take a step forward and perform the following movements.
Bend the back of the head carefully forward as if taking a bow. Return to the starting position with your head straight and facing forward.
Draw the chin in towards your neck and bend the head carefully forward. Return to the starting position. Bend the head backwards far enough to look at the ceiling. Return to the starting position.
Tilt the head sideways, so the right ear is near the right shoulder. If possible try to maintain the glance at a fixed point at eye level. Return to the starting position. Repeat this action with the head tilted to the other side.
Turn the head as if trying to look backwards over the shoulder, first to the left and then to the right. Imagine following a horizontal line on the wall at eye level.
You can also use a beach ball or a soft ball to exercise the head and neck muscles. Place the ball between the wall and the forehead and then try to move it around on the wall in circles or figures of eights. Repeat the exercise, this time placing the ball between the back of the head and the wall.

How does a doctor diagnose whiplash?

Usually the diagnosis is made on the basis of the background of the injury and the patient’s description of symptoms. Whiplash cannot be seen on an MRI scan, CT scan or X-ray, although an X-ray is taken if there is a suspicion of fracture or dislocation of the cervical spine.

Exercise

Research has shown that whiplash patients who rest for several weeks and wear a soft collar actually recover more slowly than those who try to follow a normal routine.

Patients with acute pain in the cervical region of the spine are advised to start their neck exercises as soon as possible and to get out of bed within two to three days.

Outlook

The risk of sustained after-effects is very small and the chances for complete recovery are good. However, whiplash is still a strain injury and, as with other strain injuries, it is not unusual for the pain to last for a couple of months.

Whiplash syndrome

A few people develop continuing symptoms after a whiplash trauma and develop what is known as whiplash syndrome. They suffer continual headaches and pain, reduced movement at the back of the neck, tingling in the arms, lumbar pains, fatigue, sleep disruptions and reduced libido.

Whiplash syndrome is difficult to treat. The essence of the treatment is to prevent any further strain and encourage a quick return to normal everyday activities.

Unfortunately, in a very small number of people who have experienced a severe whiplash injury, symptoms can persist for months or even years before settling and even then there can even be residual long-term neck discomfort.

How is whiplash treated?

There is no single treatment for whiplash that is widely accepted among doctors.

If there is no suspicion of a fracture or dislocation, the patient should begin exercising and pursuing normal activities as soon as possible. In some cases it may be necessary to supplement an exercise programme with painkillers.

Further advice on exercise and recovery can be sought from a physiotherapist or chiropractor. For most people the injury will simply pass after a short period.

What medication can be used to treat whiplash?

Paracetamol (eg Panadol) and NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) can be given for short periods for pain in the back of the neck and headaches. A doctor should be consulted first.

Doctors Call for Changing Antibiotics in Treating Gonorrhea

The rates with which new drug-resistant types of gonorrhea spread across the United States have accelerated so much that the doctors are now switching to new types of antibiotics to fight the disease. Among heterosexual men infected with gonorrhea about 6.7 percent in were infected with a drug-resistant type in 2006, while only 0.6 percent had the same diagnosis five years earlier. Men going to STD clinics for test are subjected to standard gonorrhea tests too, while the data obtained in these tests is monitored. The results obtained from such clinics in 26 cities display that drug-resistant gonorrhea was found in 26 percent of heterosexual men infected with gonorrhea in Philadelphia and about than 20 percent in Honolulu and four areas in California, Long Beach, Orange County, San Diego and San Francisco. The growth rates of such diseases among gay men were higher, with 38 percent in 2006 in contrast to only 1.6 percent five years earlier. In the course of 14 years, the vast majority of gonorrhea cases were effectively treated with a type of antibiotics called fluoroquinolones. Today, many doctors start switching to another class of antibiotics called cephalosporins. But the doctors are concerned with the fact that there’s only one antibiotic class left to treat gonorrhea. And it is hard to say whether there will be another drug to treat the disease when it again develops resistance to the drugs currently put in use. Other diseases such as tuberculosis have recently leaped ahead in what concerns resistance to common medication and microbes like Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella penumoniae and Acinetobacter species give the doctors new things to worry about. In the The United States about 700,000 sexually active people of all ages and genders get infected with gonorrhea each year. Thus, gonorrhea is the second common infectious disease, chlamydia being the first one. There was no resistance to to the cephalosporins from gonorrhea, so the STD centers are now recommended to prescribe ceftriaxone, sold as Rocephin, which is administered through injections. Cefixime, or Suprax, are also recommended for use. The above mentioned drugs will replace the three drugs that are currently used for treating gonorrhea: Cipro, Floxin and Levaquin. Those who are allergic to cephalosphins, can consider using Zithromax, which is successfully used as an alternative to common treatments for chlamydia. Over the years, gonorrhea has shown a steady development of resistance to most antibiotics that were used for treating it. First these were sulfa antibiotics, then penicillin and tetracyclines after that. The centers responsible for STD treatment have frequently called against using fluoroquinolones in cases of gonorrhea because of the steady development of resistance in different parts of the world. Now with only antibiotic class left in reserve doctors worry about what happens next, when they run out of options. It is early to state that there’s a gonorrhea epidemic coming anytime soon, but what if something like that happens when gonorrhea develops resistance to cephalosphins? Nobody knows.