Rear-ended at a stoplight, back is wrecked — what should I even expect here?

The waiting thing is SO common and insurance companies absolutely try to use it against you. I did the same thing after my accident — figured it was just muscle soreness. My adjuster literally brought up the gap in treatment in the first call like it was some kind of gotcha. Don't let them rattle you with that. Adrenaline masks pain, everyone knows that.

Please stop talking to that adjuster without some kind of representation or at least knowing your rights first. Those calls are not casual check-ins — they're recorded and they're looking for anything you say that minimizes your injuries or suggests you weren't that hurt. 'I'm feeling a little better' can come back to haunt you. I've seen it happen.

I used to work on the insurance side and I can tell you honestly — the delay in treatment is something adjusters are trained to flag. It doesn't kill your case but they will factor it in when calculating what they think they can get away with offering you. The key is having solid medical documentation from this point forward that connects your current symptoms to the crash. Every appointment, every complaint, every limitation — get it in your records.

The fact that your pain is getting worse over time rather than improving is actually really important information. That's not nothing. A lot of soft tissue and spinal injuries don't fully declare themselves for days or even a couple weeks after impact. Please make sure you're telling your doctors everything — how it affects your sleep, your ability to sit, all of it. Vague 'my back hurts' doesn't build the same picture as specific functional limitations.

A couple of things worth knowing: (1) most PI attorneys offer free consultations and work on contingency, meaning you pay nothing unless they recover something for you. (2) You generally don't have to give the other driver's insurance a recorded statement — that's often optional and usually not in your favor to do early on. (3) Keep a daily log of your pain levels and what you can't do. It sounds tedious but it genuinely helps build a picture of how this accident affected your life.

Not doubting your pain at all, but a few questions that will matter: Do you have the police report? Was the other driver clearly at fault and is that documented? And what does your own insurance situation look like — do you have MedPay or PIP coverage? Those details change the picture a lot.

Don't settle anything until you're either fully recovered or your doctors say you've hit maximum medical improvement. That's the big one. People accept early offers and then realize months later they're still in pain and the case is closed. Once you sign, it's over.

The fact that you caught this at six weeks and you're already in PT is honestly better than a lot of people's situations. Some folks go months without any treatment and it creates much bigger problems — physically and legally. You're ahead of where you could be, and physical therapy genuinely works for a lot of back injuries if you stick with it.

I just want to say the emotional side of this is so real and so overlooked. Having to rely on your partner for basic stuff is exhausting and humbling in a way that's hard to explain to people who haven't been there. I hope you're being gentle with yourself through this. It's a lot.