Getting hurt in a car wreck does not always produce obvious injuries. Nonetheless, you should recognize when an accident has seriously hurt you, as you might require treatment and even rehabilitation. This can be the case if a collision damaged some of your nerves.
Nerve injuries can happen due to almost any kind of serious impact, even a slip and fall. Harm to your nerves can greatly diminish your quality of life.
Problems feeling sensations
Your sensory nerves transmit sensory information to your brain. This is how you can detect solid surfaces when you touch them. If an injury has damaged one or more of these nerves, you might suddenly experience numbness, or you could suffer varying degrees of pain or heightened sensitivity. Tingling or burning sensations are also possible.
Movement impairment
When your motor nerves take injury, you may have problems moving parts of your body. Your limbs could feel weak, or your muscles might atrophy. In serious cases, you might experience paralysis, which could even indicate a spinal cord injury. Motor nerve damage can also manifest through twitching.
Body function symptoms
Autonomic nerves regulate functions of your body that you do not consciously control. So if your accident injures these nerves, you could experience digestive problems such as constipation or an inability to control your bladder or bowels. Other symptoms can include an excess or a sharp decrease in sweating. Sometimes autonomic problems produce a dry mouth.
More dangerously, autonomic nerve problems can affect your ability to feel chest pain, which can stop you from feeling the initial signs of angina or a heart attack. You could also experience a rise in blood pressure.
Even if you think you have emerged from an accident unscathed, pay attention to any symptoms that you experience. A medical exam should tell you if you are in danger of permanent problems and if you need treatment and rehabilitation to restore your health.