My apologies for the last post, Ben. I hadn't been reading the threads on this site much recently. I see you did, in fact, have a few symptom regressions that took months to resolve.

I stand by what I said about the damage not being permanent. These small incidents can trigger migraine, whiplash, panic attacks, or a combination of all three. This can cause neurological symptoms that can be debilitating but TEMPORARY. If your doctors aren't being helpful I would recommend seeing a better one. All three of those things can be treated, so it's best to figure out the root cause so this stops happening to you and you can stop worrying. There are many folks on this site who have had major success with proper neck treatment, and migraine medication has made a world of difference for people like me. Folks on the internet can speculate about your specific case, but only a specialist is really going to be able to help (sometimes needs to be a really good one...like, working for the NFL good). Best of luck!!

No, inflammatory damage is not permanent. The brain is capable of healing and repairing itself and can regenerate new cells. But it takes the brain a long time to clean up the inflammation so that's why it's important to take something right away to stop the cascade of symptoms.