After a motor vehicle accident, whiplash is the most common injury. The rapid acceleration and deceleration of your neck causes tremendous stress to your “soft tissues”, which include muscles, ligaments, tendons and vertebrae disks. Whiplash trauma can be incredibly painful, and affect many aspects of daily life. We’ve put together a resource of answers and actions you can take to assist your recovery.

My concussion was so severe, I had to take a semester off school.

Getting rear-ended derailed my life for the next 3 months. I was in constant pain. Headaches lasted all day. But everything and everyone around me was still in motion: my friends moved on, moved forward. All my classmates in the program finished, wrote the exam. Passed. Found jobs.

The hardest part was dealing with the emotional isolation.

I was two months postpartum. My van was brand new, as old as my 2-month old son. I had rotated to shoulder check when I was rear-ended, which messed up my whole left side. Injured hip, shoulder pain, massive migraines, whiplash, damaged thumb tendon...

7 months later, October 2019, I was finished my physio sessions with Kyle. Most of my injuries were better. I even tried a hike with the family—had to turn back halfway, but it was so much better than where I'd been before, when I couldn't stand or even sit in the same position for more than a few minutes. I was on the mend.

And then…

The last thing you might feel like doing is exercise, for fear that you might make your injuries worse. But it’s important not to become completely sedentary.