If you have been involved in an accident, watch out for headaches that may begin in a few hours or day's time. Remember you are supposed to be compensated for all injuries that you can prove. It may be difficult to connect your headache to the accident, especially if you did not consider the accident serious. Here are some of the potential causes of post-accident headaches.
Referred Pain
Referred pain emanates from other parts of the body and manifests itself as a headache. For example, injuries to parts of the body near your head, such as the neck and shoulders, can spread to your head and be felt like a headache. This may happen even with subtle injuries. For example, stretched muscles or bruised nerves may not produce any physical/external symptoms, but can result in serious headaches.
Concussion
Concussion, which is a mild form of traumatic brain injury, occurs when you receive a blow to the head. Unfortunately, the severity of a concussion isn't indicative of the severity of the headaches that might follow. Thus, you might experience a relatively mild blow to the head and later experience a severe headache associated while another person might develop a mild headache after a serious head injury. Therefore, you might fail to connect your post-concussion headache to your accident.
Whiplash
Whiplash is the name given to the neck injury you develop if you experience a sudden movement of the head backward and forward. One of its symptoms is a severe headache concentrated at the base of the skull. Whiplash can occur with any type of accident, but it is most common with read-end collisions. Like a post-concussion headache, the symptoms of whiplash may begin days after the accident, which means it is another injury you might fail to connect to its real cause.
Analgesic Rebound
Analgesic rebounds are caused by painkillers. This is ironical because the same drugs you may be taking to deal with the above forms of headaches may also cause further headaches. The more painkillers you take, the more you are likely to develop analgesic rebound headaches. That's why it's not advisable to self-medicate after an accident; you may end up abusing your painkillers (and creating further headaches) in the name of treating your post-concussion issues.
Remember to get treatments for and keep records of your headaches if you want compensation for them. Even if a headache is the only pain you are feeling after a car accident, tell your doctor about the crash. This will help you both with the treatment and claim process.
For a personal injury lawyer, click this link http://caminezlaw.net or do an online search.
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