No Pain At First? You Still May Be Seriously Injured

If you’re injured in an accident, you get an injury, you feel pain, and you get treatment. At least, that’s how most people think it goes. In reality, many people may not even realize they’re injured right after an accident, because of how our body responds to injury, and because of the types of injuries people normally sustain in accidents.

Why Delayed Pain in Dangerous

Remember that after an accident, your body is likely full of adrenaline and other stress hormones. Those chemicals can often mask the feelings of pain. This can lead to two problems.

The first is obvious: because you don’t feel pain, you may not be inclined to get treatment; you’ll refuse the ER, or not go to the doctor, or tell everybody who is listening that you’re fine.

The second problem is less obvious: because you feel fine, you’re using limbs or body parts that should not be used because they’re injured, and thus you could be making a small or moderate injury worse without knowing it.

The Role of Inflammation

Have you ever had a small cut or a scrape, and then after a few hours or even a day, it looks and feels way worse? On a larger scale, that’s how the insides of our bodies work as well, when we’re injured. Much of the pain, stiffness, soreness, and lack of rage of motion, comes from inflammation and swelling. And as you know from cuts or scrapes, that inflammation isn’t there immediately.

Professional athletes experience this as well. Many times, athletes are able to play out the game, and only later is it revealed that they have a torn ACL or MCL. The same holds true with the shoulder—many people don’t get severe pain in their shoulder until hours after an accident, when rotator cuff injuries usually appear on any post-accident MRIs.

Deadly Brain Bleeds

In fact, one of the deadliest injuries of all of them, actually does not manifest as any pain or irregularity right after an accident.

Brain bleeds happen so slowly, that immediately after an accident, there is no pain, no irregularity, and many victims feel just like themselves. Even post accident scans may not display anything irregular, in the minutes or hours after an accident.

But as the bleed gets worse, pressure is put on the brain, and death can be the result.

Public Perception

Often, people who say they “feel fine” after an accident, often wake up the next day feeling much much worse.

Unfortunately, most of the general public—including those who may sit on your jury in your injury case—don’t often understand this idea. They will interpret an unwillingness to go to an ER or to get medical care after a doctor, as an indication of how injured you may or may not be.

Don’t ignore pain following an accident. Get medical help. Contact our Rhode Island injury lawyers at Robert E. Craven & Associates at 401-453-2700 today for help and for questions.

Sources:

webmd.com/back-pain/guide/low-back-strain

pinnaclehealthchiro.com/blog/how-adrenaline-and-endorphins-can-delay-the-pain-you-feel-after-a-car-accident#:~:text=Adrenaline%20tells%20your%20body%20how,be%20partially%20or%20completely%20masked.