After getting into a car crash, one thing you should pay attention to is your back. Even if you did not suffer from damage to the spine, you could still suffer soft tissue damage.
Though people often overlook soft tissue back injury, it can have traumatic impacts that can seriously alter the course of your life.
Complications with soft tissue injuries
The International Association for the Study of Pain talks about how back injuries affect many areas of life. Specifically, back injuries associated with soft tissue damage can have a lasting impact.
Soft tissue injuries involve swelling which takes time and care to reduce. During this period of inflammation, it is possible and even quite easy to exacerbate the damage to the point that pain becomes a chronic issue.
Swollen soft tissue can also pinch nerves in the surrounding area, adding nerve pain to the compounded issues that the sufferer has to deal with.
Chronic pain and mental health
Chronic pain also has numerous ties to mental health problems. Studies over the years have shown a high overlap between chronic pain and anxiety or depression. Many sufferers of chronic pain also suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders or other trauma-based disorders.
There are financial repercussions, too. Victims often suffer through a period of unemployment as they recover, or a period where they are still employed but are not receiving any sort of income.
On top of that, they may also be facing expenses in the form of medical costs. This creates a situation where the victim is losing money without pulling any in, which is an additional potent stressor that may impact the healing process.