You may be involved in a simple fender bender or a disastrous head-on collision, but there's almost a guarantee that whiplash will happen. Often when you are in a car crash, your head will jerk backwards or slam forwards, causing injury to the soft tissue in the neck region. The sudden jerk can create all sorts of side-effects, but most often leaves victims with a very sore neck. There is also sometimes pain in the shoulders, head, or base of the skull. When an air-bag explodes, it can knock the head backwards.

Most patients who suffer from whiplash will recover in a few weeks or months, depending on the severity of the injury. While the victim may be back at work within this amount of time, 70 percent of victims need an entire year until their soft tissues are fully restored. Another 12 percent of whiplash victims need 2 years to recover fully from this injury. 15 to 20 percent of all whiplash injuries leave the victim with chronic pain. Whiplash can also induce sleep problems, poor concentration, failed memory, blurry vision, ringing in the ears, fatigue, or general weakness. Sometimes whiplash victims will suffer changes in emotions such as heightened irritation, depression, or a shortened temper. Approximately one-half of all whiplash victims suffer from dizziness after the injury.

Whiplash can be treated with physical therapy, injections, and a host of other medical procedures. If your whiplash continues to aggravate you for over six months, then you may have injured your facet joints or the discs in this region. Doctors will want to perform MRIs and X-rays to see what your injuries are, and then prescribe treatments. In extreme cases, you may need surgery to correct your neck injury. Whiplash is often more than just a soft tissue issue. Normally there are also damages to ligaments, discs and joints. One chiropractor explains that because the driver is not normally expecting the impact of a car crash, his or her muscles are relaxed. This means that when the head whips forcefully to one side, it allows more forces to impact these various parts of the neck, shoulders, and base of the skull.

Even crashes at a low velocity can cause a whiplash that will leave significant structural damage. When you have suffered severe pain and damages from a car accident, you may be able to sue the other driver for compensation. If the other driver was at fault for the accident, he or she may be compelled to pay your medical bills and recompense you for any lost wages. When it comes to whiplash, you normally can't determine the severity of the injury right after the accident. After three months or so, if you are still feeling serious pain or your neck is still hot, tender, and inflamed, then you may have a severe whiplash injury.

Only facet injections can determine whether or not your whiplash has affected the joints in your neck region. If you are still in pain three months after your accident, you may want to have these injections done to prove whether or not you are suffering these sorts of damages. One research study on this subject showed that 23 percent of patients with persistent pain months after their accident were sustaining injuries to the facet joints. 20 percent of patients with persistent pain had disc injuries. 41 percent of all patients that came back to the hospital months after their car accident were suffering from a combination of these two injuries. The other 17 percent of the patients had unidentifiable neck issues. If you have a tireless whiplash injury, it may be worthy of a lawsuit. You should visit your doctor for a diagnosis, and then contact a personal injury lawyer for a consultation to see if you have a legitimate case.