Electrical Stimulation After a Car Accident: Calm Muscle Spasm From Visit 1

At the settings used for pain, the current stimulates the sensory nerves in the skin, which crowds out the pain signals traveling to the brain and prompts the body to release its own pain-reducing chemicals. At the settings used for spasm, the current makes the muscle contract and relax in rhythm, which tires the spasm out, pumps fluid through the tissue, and restores normal tone.

Different settings do different jobs. Interferential current reaches deeper tissue and is the usual choice for the low back. Lower-frequency settings are used for surface pain and for muscles that need to be reminded how to fire. Dr. McNamara-Krauss selects the mode by what the examination found.

In the first week after a crash on Federal Highway or I-95, the injured tissue is swollen and the muscles around it are locked, so hands-on treatment is limited. Electrical stimulation, with Class IV laser on the LightForce, is what we use in that window. It is standard in the early plan for whiplash, neck injuries, back injuries, and soft tissue injuries.

Later in the plan, it is used right after an adjustment or decompression to keep the muscles from tightening back down around the joint that was just freed. Under Florida PIP, treatment within 14 days keeps the full $10,000 benefit available, and a first session on the examination visit is often how that deadline is met. This is general information, not legal advice.

Pads are placed around the injured area, and the unit is turned up slowly until you feel a strong but comfortable tingling or pulsing. The intensity is set by you, not by a number on the machine. You rest for a set number of minutes, often in one of the therapy recliners, while the current runs. There is no needle and no downtime.

A typical course is a session at most visits in the first weeks, when spasm and pain are highest, then only as needed once the joints and muscles hold between visits. There is no fixed count. Dr. McNamara-Krauss re-measures range of motion on a schedule, and electrical stimulation stays in the plan only while it is doing a job the measurements show.

Electrical stimulation is a low-risk treatment when the patient is screened for it. Dr. Carol McNamara-Krauss is a Florida-licensed chiropractic physician (DC), license CH5281. She does not use it on patients with a pacemaker or other implanted electrical device, across the chest, on the front of the neck, over the pregnant abdomen or low back, over broken skin, over a known tumor, or on patients with a seizure disorder.

Head injuries and concussion are screened and referred, not treated here, and electrical stimulation is not applied to the head. Chest pain, shortness of breath, spreading numbness, or a suspected fracture goes to an emergency department before any office treatment. Broward Health North on Sample Road in Deerfield Beach is the nearest to this office.