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The recovery time from a car accident injury varies a lot -- from a few weeks to years. Having said that, by your description, you can probably expect a recovery time roughly in the 6 to 8 week range. After 2 weeks, your injuries are still in the subacute stage, where the pain is not great when you are resting, but can exacerbate easily with too much activity or overzealous exercising to "strengthen" your back. So relative rest is in order. Relative rest does NOT mean lying on your back -- it just means reducing or cutting out activity or things that are likely to aggravate your pain. The only exercises that are appropriate at this stage are gentle core stability exercise and light stretching that does not cause pain. Walking for distances that do not aggravate your pain has also been shown to help. Regular strengthening exercise should be started only once you have restored your ability to recruit and control your core muscles (typically lost with an injury). A physical therapist will help guide you through this process, telling you what exercises, how, and when to progress. Dan
:Sorry for the NZR post but since this was caused by my Z I figured close enough.
:Hoping there are some Physical Therapy folks out there. I will ultimately call the doc on Monday but just trying to get some insight.
:Monday will be two weeks since the accident. I am pretty mobile right now, off all painkillers but still doing muscle relaxers about twice a day if needed. I am still having some pain but nothing to scream about just mostly stiffness in my back. As far as activity is concerned I pretty much let my body tell me how much I can do. I can dabble around the house for about 20 mins then I need to sit for about 30 mins. When I do sit I have a massager/heated cushion and I use that very often.
:So my question is, are there anythings I can do to help speed this recovery up? Any excercises or stretching that I should/should not be doing? I feel like I should be going to the gym and trying to make things stronger but feel that also could be the worst thing to do.
:Just as some background information, I still have some significant bruising around my hip and shoulder areas. All of the pain and stiffness ranges from around T6/T7 to about L4, not directly on the vertabrae but on the muscular regions around them. Like I said I am off all painkillers and need to avoid NSAIDs due to a GI bleed earlier this week and NSAIDs also compromise my renal function (boy that was sure fun).
:So is there anything or do I just need to back off and just let my body heal more? This really sucks just sitting here....
:If you have any questions I will answer the best I can.
:Thanks for any advice that anyone can give.
:Randy
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