It takes only seconds for a car accident to happen, but the injuries may linger for the rest of your life. While you may experience significant pain immediately, other injuries may cause delayed pain that becomes obvious days or weeks after your accident.
Role of hormones during a car accident
Your body recognizes that motor vehicle collisions create major physical trauma. When a collision happens, your body may try to compensate by releasing an excess of adrenaline and endorphins. The sudden release of these hormones may result in any of the following:
- An increase in energy
- Lack of pain
- Increased strength due to excess blood flow
- Sharper vision and hearing
- Numbness to any pain
- General feeling of calm
As a result of adrenaline and endorphins flooding your system after a car accident, you may not recognize that you are injured. Your hormone levels may take days to level out, and only then will you begin to experience pain.
Commonly delayed physical pain
Following a car accident, you should remain aware of any new symptoms or pain you might experience. Any new symptom may serve as an alert to a major personal injury, such as Traumatic Brain Injury, internal bleeding or a blood clot.
Commonly delayed pain after a car accident includes:
- Abdominal pain
- Neck and back pain
- Headaches
- Shoulder pain
Other symptoms you may experience days or weeks after your accident may involve:
- Blurry vision
- Dizziness
- Insomnia
- Memory loss
- Extreme fatigue
- Nausea
- Personality changes
- Anxiety
- Post-traumatic stress disorder
Understanding what delayed pain means
While delayed pain occurs normally after a car accident, insurance companies may use the delay to try to avoid paying you the compensation you deserve. For this reason, you should seek medical treatment immediately after a car crash and as soon as you experience any new pain.