Any injury to your neck could be the cause of the pain you feel now regardless of the time between the accident and the current pain.
However, it could be another cause, yet everything needs to be looked at before a judgment about why you have the pain is made.
Car accidents that are very small may not show their effects for a long time and they can have hidden consequences on your health.
In fact, if you feel pain soon after the accident, then it probably means that you have sustained some kind of injury.
Accidents also may not just affect us physically but also emotionally.
Let us face it; cars are a prized possession for a lot of people.
Destroying or injuring a car to any extent can be very distressing.
We may find ourselves questioning our ability to continue after an auto accident because our main mode of transportation may have been destroyed.
It is these thoughts that may take us away from the most important thoughts like, "am I damaged in any way shape or form?" A common way to deal with any pain that we are experiencing is to try to use pills to cover up or mask the pain.
A more serious injury cannot be covered up and masked without serious repercussions, however.
Injuries like that are serious and can include damage to areas such as the ligaments and bones.
The damage may not be just to the structures.
They may be displaced and forced to elongate.
It becomes even more of a problem if the neck and its supporting structures begin moving towards the injured areas.
Gravity may also do its work and pull us further out of alignment.
Bones that find themselves outside their natural alignments will also pull nerves out of the correct areas.
The small amount of pain now becomes a larger problem that may have been able to be dealt with much sooner.
The body gets used to being in certain positions which negates its natural mechanical advantages.
The lack of those advantages around the muscle system cause muscles to work in ways not intended which can further damage the systems involved.
The body may also have something called scar tissue which makes it much more rigid and the body has to work around these areas in order to get things done.
All of the above equals to bad posture and further problems including bad alignment.
The body is like any other system and it has its limits to what it can adapt to over time.
The body continues to experience pain even though the body is trying to adjust to its new demands.
Scar tissue also presents another problem which is a lack of mobility if it is located around a joint.
The scar tissue influences other systems and may force muscle fiber recruitment from other areas that are not meant to be used in the ways they are called upon in order to stabilize a system or be a prime mover.
A joint may also become too flexible this can irritate the nerves and cause a host of other problems.
A body is designed to work in very specific ways and changing those ways usually causes problems for the body system.
Hyper mobility can be caused by elongated muscles.
Hyper mobility can cause pain and instability.
Hyper mobility and gravity work together to cause even more pain and suffering for the affected person not to mention instability for the body system especially when movement is forced around those hyper mobile joints.
A problem can be even worse if the person was active.
Mentally they are used to their body being able to do certain things and it can be frustrating to not be able to have the same physical attributes as before the injury.
They may even injure themselves if a joint has too much flexibility and is forced to try to stop motion where it does not have enough mechanical advantage to overcome the forward force.
Finally, a person who is sedentary may also have a problem because they are less likely to feel the pain.
They might be able to ignore the pain for long periods of time because they do not use those muscles very often.
They may not know they need help with an area till it is years later and the problem is harder to fix.
Disclaimer: This information should be substituted for medical or chiropractic advice.
Any and all health care concerns, decisions, and actions must be done through the advice and counsel of a health care professional who is familiar with your updated medical history.