Whiplash
The off duty EMT who saw me go down said I hit my head. My head didn't hurt and I don't have a headache, but the helmet definitely caused whiplash and it did take a good knock on the back. I do need a new one, but not till I have a bike to ride again. Won't be this week.
So how do I know it's whiplash? Well I started googling "accident aftercare" or something like, and kept running into whiplash advice. Even as the advice piled up, so too did the muscle stiffness and a neck pain of the icky sort.
So I figure, yeah, whiplash and a banged knee. What I can tell about it, rest and stretching, NSAID pain killers, and life goes on as usual for me but the cause of my chronic pain is temporarily known by me, and by this blog. Only.
You see, the car I hit had a scuff on it's black bumper. It was pretty slow speed and my bike is light so it didn't breach the bumper's shock absorbtion ability. It will actually buff out.
However, SGI wants to interfere now with my bike, my record, and increase my punishment for that moment of distraction and I think I'm well enough paid for my crime. I won't forget this. I won't forget the location, the cause, the type of accident, or why it happened. So I don't want SGI to know. I'm the only person who had damage to report and I am under no illusions that they'll do anything for me except add injury to my experience. Stupid CAA lady was acting like this was a gunshot wound in ER or a child abuse case and legally required to report it. I wouldn't be surprised if she is but she hasn't got my license plate so there's just nothing to back up the phone call. The tow operator got cash and tips so probably isn't going to be very co-operative about who, what, where or how bad.
I am not taking this to the doctor. He would tell me to take the medicine I've taken and do what I'm currently doing. Less, in fact, than what I actually am doing because I consider the smoked salmon and coconut water medicinal too. the salmon has the fish oils and nutrients to help repair any neural damage and the water has electrolytes, natural sugars, and hydration.
Take that, Dr. Sillypants. ASA is my NSAID of choice because while refined, at least I know it came from under the bark of a willow tree at some point. Drinking the tea instead is icky tasting and more work when I have no nurse to aid me. Now if I did, there'd be a pot of catnip mint tea helping my muscles relax and the inflammation to go down.
Do you know why you get inflamed? Because in the bad old days of our evolution we usually had to keep going pretty hard in spite of our injuries. The swelling acted like a brace on the injury and the pain forced the person to favour their body, but the body could still keep going with less overall damage. The inflammation, however, is destructive in itself, just not as bad as running a marathon on a broken joint! So to stop it when you can rest just fine improves your healing and reduces your pain and helps signal to the body's healing system that it's safe to start the repair process.
So anyway, this is my first experience with whiplash. I'm not too worried. I've had some insane neck cramps from stress anyway. I've also had a case of west nile virus causing my whole spinal skin tissue to go inflamed. It wraps right around your brain and down through your spine and nothing will ever come close to pain after that. It was worse than the endometriosis I endured for years, or having tooth aches, which come in #7 on the pain meter.
I suspect whiplash will come in around six or so. Worse than an average bad day, but not much different. I also have two back massager devices and a TENS machine I can turn to if stretching won't do.
This business of carrying enormous stress in my back and shoulders also means I'm almost as flexible as a contortionist. Always stretching, stretching, and it gets deeper the more often I stretch. I started with gymnastics in school, then graduated to dancing in my teens, finally trying yoga and then just developing my own stretching routine (I suspect it's exactly like yoga and even has some matching forms) when my chiropractor explained how it worked.
I am quite sure too that a lot of my back pain is sitting too much but then, as I wrote here a while ago, there is that whole Lumbar Lordosis factor I'm still fighting. Learning to elevate my breast bone above my pubic bone, as it happens, is quite challenging. I find myself slumping, but instead of slumpping forward, I slump to an S curve that braces my upper torso against my leg joints!
Or else i'm shoving my stomach out and my ass out trying to lift my shoulders instead of tightening ill-used tummy muscles to lift it.
Okay then, later.
So how do I know it's whiplash? Well I started googling "accident aftercare" or something like, and kept running into whiplash advice. Even as the advice piled up, so too did the muscle stiffness and a neck pain of the icky sort.
So I figure, yeah, whiplash and a banged knee. What I can tell about it, rest and stretching, NSAID pain killers, and life goes on as usual for me but the cause of my chronic pain is temporarily known by me, and by this blog. Only.
You see, the car I hit had a scuff on it's black bumper. It was pretty slow speed and my bike is light so it didn't breach the bumper's shock absorbtion ability. It will actually buff out.
However, SGI wants to interfere now with my bike, my record, and increase my punishment for that moment of distraction and I think I'm well enough paid for my crime. I won't forget this. I won't forget the location, the cause, the type of accident, or why it happened. So I don't want SGI to know. I'm the only person who had damage to report and I am under no illusions that they'll do anything for me except add injury to my experience. Stupid CAA lady was acting like this was a gunshot wound in ER or a child abuse case and legally required to report it. I wouldn't be surprised if she is but she hasn't got my license plate so there's just nothing to back up the phone call. The tow operator got cash and tips so probably isn't going to be very co-operative about who, what, where or how bad.
I am not taking this to the doctor. He would tell me to take the medicine I've taken and do what I'm currently doing. Less, in fact, than what I actually am doing because I consider the smoked salmon and coconut water medicinal too. the salmon has the fish oils and nutrients to help repair any neural damage and the water has electrolytes, natural sugars, and hydration.
Take that, Dr. Sillypants. ASA is my NSAID of choice because while refined, at least I know it came from under the bark of a willow tree at some point. Drinking the tea instead is icky tasting and more work when I have no nurse to aid me. Now if I did, there'd be a pot of catnip mint tea helping my muscles relax and the inflammation to go down.
Do you know why you get inflamed? Because in the bad old days of our evolution we usually had to keep going pretty hard in spite of our injuries. The swelling acted like a brace on the injury and the pain forced the person to favour their body, but the body could still keep going with less overall damage. The inflammation, however, is destructive in itself, just not as bad as running a marathon on a broken joint! So to stop it when you can rest just fine improves your healing and reduces your pain and helps signal to the body's healing system that it's safe to start the repair process.
So anyway, this is my first experience with whiplash. I'm not too worried. I've had some insane neck cramps from stress anyway. I've also had a case of west nile virus causing my whole spinal skin tissue to go inflamed. It wraps right around your brain and down through your spine and nothing will ever come close to pain after that. It was worse than the endometriosis I endured for years, or having tooth aches, which come in #7 on the pain meter.
I suspect whiplash will come in around six or so. Worse than an average bad day, but not much different. I also have two back massager devices and a TENS machine I can turn to if stretching won't do.
This business of carrying enormous stress in my back and shoulders also means I'm almost as flexible as a contortionist. Always stretching, stretching, and it gets deeper the more often I stretch. I started with gymnastics in school, then graduated to dancing in my teens, finally trying yoga and then just developing my own stretching routine (I suspect it's exactly like yoga and even has some matching forms) when my chiropractor explained how it worked.
I am quite sure too that a lot of my back pain is sitting too much but then, as I wrote here a while ago, there is that whole Lumbar Lordosis factor I'm still fighting. Learning to elevate my breast bone above my pubic bone, as it happens, is quite challenging. I find myself slumping, but instead of slumpping forward, I slump to an S curve that braces my upper torso against my leg joints!
Or else i'm shoving my stomach out and my ass out trying to lift my shoulders instead of tightening ill-used tummy muscles to lift it.
Okay then, later.