Shoulder Injury Treatment No Clinic Visit Required
Reaching for a seatbelt, a coat or the top shelf is the moment you notice it, and sleeping on that side stopped being possible days ago. We assess the shoulder at your home, in DFW or Houston, and start treating it the same appointment.
THE ARM THAT WAS ON THE WHEEL
Bracing for impact is what tears the cuff
In the half second before contact, the arms lock out against the wheel or the dash. That drives the collision force up a straightened arm into a joint held together mostly by soft tissue, and the rotator cuff, the labrum and the AC joint take it. What makes a rotator cuff injury from car accident loading easy to miss is where it reports. The pain shows up on the outside of the arm rather than in the joint, worst at night and reaching overhead, and the shoulder still lifts, so for a week it reads as a bruise. Shoulder injury treatment starts with isolating which structure is involved, because the cuff, the labrum and the AC joint each need different handling.
GETTING SEEN QUICKLY
You make the call and we take it from there
One short phone call. The date of the crash, which arm, and what you can no longer reach or lift.
With an attorney, a letter of protection is arranged straight with the firm, so treatment is settled out of the case rather than charged to you mid recovery. Without one, PIP, MedPay, health coverage and direct payment all work.
A clinician usually reaches you inside two days, either metro, and treatment for shoulder pain after car accident injuries begins in that visit, with range of motion measured in degrees, strength graded and the special tests documented.
THE WINDOW ON THIS ONE IS SHORT
A shoulder that stops moving gets harder to move back
The shoulder punishes waiting more than almost any other joint. It is the most mobile joint you have, and that mobility depends on a capsule staying loose. Hold the arm still because lifting it hurts and that capsule begins to tighten within weeks, so you end up with two problems stacked together, the original injury and a joint that has lost its range. Pulling range back once it has gone takes far longer than protecting it did. This is why car accident shoulder injuries get early, careful, guided movement rather than a sling and a wait, with the load kept off the injured structure while everything else keeps working. It is also where a shoulder injury from car accident impact is won or lost, because nothing here depends on how the shoulder feels on a good day. It depends on what the degrees do week to week.
Chiropractor at home
Work directed at the AC joint, the shoulder blade and the neck and upper back segments that the shoulder borrows movement from.
Physical therapy at home
Cuff and scapular retraining in the ranges the examination says are safe, loaded progressively instead of pushed through pain.