Why You Should See Your Doctor after a Car Accident
It’s generally a good idea to schedule a checkup with your doctor after involvement in a crash. Even if you went right home and didn’t receive emergency medical care, you may have been injured. Common examples of injuries that can easily show up later include:
- Whiplash
- Brain injury
- Soft tissue injury
- Nerve damage
- Blood clot
- Internal bleeding
- Broken fingers or fractured bones in your hand
- Herniated disc
Soft tissue injuries – trauma to the muscles, ligaments, tendons and nerves – don’t always show up right away on an x-ray. So even if you visited your doctor initially, you should schedule a follow up if you develop new symptoms. Whiplash is a common soft-tissue injury that may not be apparent right away. Whiplash symptoms include neck and shoulder pain, neck stiffness, reduced range of motion of the neck, headaches and dizziness.
Delayed Symptoms
You should take notice of any symptom, change or irregularity that occurs after a car accident. Although this list is not exhaustive, these are some of the delayed symptoms that commonly arise:
- Change in vision, speech, sensation or sense of smell
- Tingling, numbness or similar symptoms in your extremities, fingers, etc.
- Headache
- Neck, shoulder and/or back pain, soreness or stiffness
- Abdominal pain
- Reduced mobility
- Memory loss
- Impaired ability to concentrate
- Nausea
- Insomnia or sleeping much more than usual
- Dizziness
These things could indicate an underlying trauma, or they may be harmless. The only way to know for sure is to visit your doctor. There are other reasons you should schedule a checkup: It establishes a record of medical care, which can be very important should you choose to pursue a claim with our attorneys. Scheduling a doctor’s appointment right after the accident shows insurers that you were proactively seeking care. It may help to show that any injuries that do appear were related to your car accident, and that they are not linked to some circumstance that occurred in the time between the crash and your filing a claim.
Legal Advice Specific to Your Injuries
The experienced Chicago car accident lawyers at Sklare Law Group can determine if you have a car accident claim and can help you pursue maximum compensation for your injuries. If the accident was caused by someone else’s negligence, you may be entitled to much more than any initial insurance company offers. For a complimentary consultation, please call us in Illinois at 312-263-0771.
