When it comes to dealing with injury, it’s hard for people unaccustomed to an injurious situation to distinguish between when they should just use rest and an ice pack to get through the pain and when the incident warrants a trip to the doctor. This is unfortunate, as you don’t want to be playing a guessing game with your longterm health.
Therefore, it’s important to pay attention to those circumstances that should necessitate a doctor’s visit. A new report outlines such situations with guidelines provided by the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. If you find yourself reeling from any of these things, be they caused by a sports injury or something like a car crash, make sure you head in to the doctor to see if the issue is serious and what might be done to treat the problem.
Any type of pain around the head and neck region is something that must be taken seriously, especially if it comes in the aftermath of an impact to the head or the area feeling the pain.
A normal headache, if you’re used to suffering from these types of things, may not always necessitate a visit to the doctor. But if that pain ends up working its way from your forehead to your neck or the back of your head, then you might be wise to get a checkup. Should this pain radiate down your neck to the point where it’s attacking your spinal cord, then you definitely need to schedule an appointment posthaste, as this could indicate an issue that’s far more serious than your standard headache.
Mobility issues also need to be taken into consideration. If your neck feels fine when you stand up perfectly straight but causes you to wince in pain the moment you turn it in any direction, this is something that needs to be corrected. This is especially the case if you’ve just been rear-ended in an accident or twisted the wrong way during a sporting event. Any limits to mobility in other parts of the body should similarly necessitate a doctor’s visit.
Numbness is the other thing that must be taken seriously by anyone who suffers from it. If your pain gets to the point where it’s causing you to lose sensation in any of your extremities, you need to get a doctor to figure out what’s wrong. Pain is one thing, but a loss of feeling or a tingling sensation in your arms or legs is quite another, and you’ll need to get yourself checked out so you can have your future health assured.
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