What’s My Alternative: Whiplash

When Sarah Prahl got into a minor car accident, she hit her head against her vehicle’s inflated airbags. The result: a bad case of whiplash. “My neck was fine at first,” says Prahl, “but over the course of the next few days, the pain gradually increased and became quite debilitating.”

The Conventional Rx: Prahl’s osteopath prescribed painkillers, muscle relaxants, and lidocaine patches to numb the area around her neck. But the drugs made her sick, and she didn’t use the patches. “I was afraid of all that medicine seeping into my bloodstream,” says Prahl.

The Alternative Rx: Craniosacral therapy. This gentle massage technique realigns the nervous system and restores the spinal alignment between the skull and sacrum (tailbone), helping to decrease inflammation in the area. “When you have whiplash, your neck muscles get overstretched, which causes your tendons and ligaments to swell,” says Barry Sensenig, Prahl’s Denver-based chiropractor. “This inflammation alters the way energy moves up and down the spine.” Sensenig says craniosacral therapy speeds up healing time in whiplash patients by 50 percent—depending on the accident and how much damage the tendons suffered.

Prahl also supplemented with Wobenzym Proteolytic Enzymes, an anti-inflammatory derived from pineapple and papaya that contains bromelain. This helped her immune system fight the inflammation in her neck area and heal the tendons and ligaments more quickly.

The Outcome: Although Prahl still has some residual pain—especially during and after exercise such as hiking—day-to-day activities are mostly pain-free, and Sensenig expects she’ll be fully healed within six months of the accident.