Signs and Symptoms of Neck & Back Injuries
Many spine and neck injuries do not present immediately and may not be apparent to others even when they are entirely symptomatic. Consult medical professionals who can recognize your injuries and treat you for them.
Many of these symptoms can affect your ability to work and also your enjoyment of life. The loss of earning capacity and the loss of your enjoyment of life are also compensable injuries. An experienced neck and back injury attorney, like those at Rosenberg & Gluck, can help you determine how your neck and back injuries have lessened the quality of your life and what forms of compensation you might seek.
Some of the symptoms to look out for include:
- Stiffness – Most neck and back injuries will include stiffness as one of the early symptoms. You will find that the muscles surrounding your injury have become tight and don’t want to cooperate when you want to me.
- Decreased range of motion – You will also notice that you won’t move as flexibly as you usually do to the extent you can move at all. You may be able, for example, to turn your head, but not as far as you have done in the past.
- Headaches and dizziness – Neck and back injuries can also cause you to have
- Tingling and Numbness in hands, fingers, feet, or toes – Injuries that impact the nerves in the spinal column
- Muscle spasms in neck and shoulders – Neck injuries can leave you with chronic muscle spasms in your neck and shoulders.
- Muscle spasms in the back – Your back may also experience recurring muscle spasms. The spasms can be continual or episodic but can severely impact your overall well-being.
- Loss of Sensation – If your neck or back injury damages nerves or the spinal cord, it can leave you with more or less widespread loss of sensation.
- Loss of Mobility – Injuries to the back and neck can cause damage to the nerves that results in weakness in your legs, arms, hands, or fingers. This loss of mobility in these limbs can be debilitating.
- Chronic Pain – All back and neck injuries can leave you with chronic pain or lesser or greater intensity. Severe chronic pain can be life-altering and significantly impact the pain and suffering damages your attorneys seek on your behalf.
- Acute Pain – Acute pain is more likely to occur when you suffer an injury and while you are healing. Again, the length and intensity of your pain significantly impact the non-economic damages your attorneys will seek.
- Pain that Increases with movement – Many back and neck injuries will leave you with pain that worsens as you move, limiting your ability to work and enjoy life.
- Loss of bladder or bowel control – The loss of bladder and bowel control is another result of neck and back injuries that can bring severe limitations and emotional consequences to your post-accident life.
Common Treatments of Neck & Back Injuries
Understanding the treatments for neck and back injuries can help your experienced neck and back attorney draft a realistic and complete settlement that will anticipate and compensate you for the broad range of expenses that can arise from these treatments.
- Physical Therapy – Physical therapy involves a series of exercises and movements that help to rebuild muscles and function. Sessions are scheduled for weeks at a time and focus on particular injuries. You will eventually reach a condition that is the best you will achieve. Your attorney will work with your therapists to predict this time and condition and use it to calculate damages in your case.
- Medicine – Once a medical professional has treated your initial injuries and any accompanying infections, much of the ongoing medical intervention in your case is likely to be pain management. As pain drugs have become more widely abused and thus less widely available, pain management has become more challenging. You may well need to work with pain management specialists and experts who can discuss the impact of your ongoing pain on your post-accident life.
- Injections – Injections for your neck and back injuries can include pain management but also reduction of inflammation around your injuries.
- Acupuncture – Alternative therapies like acupuncture can help tremendously with treating pain and mobility issues. Your Rosenberg & Gluck attorneys are acquainted with these alternative medicines and can bring expert testimony to support the appropriateness of this therapy for you.
- Mazor X robotic surgery – Robotic technology allows your surgeon to avoid performing freehand neck or spine surgery and instead provide highly accurate and state-of-the-art guided spinal surgical procedures. A highly skilled surgeon is necessary to direct this surgery.
- Cervical discectomy and fusion – Cervical discectomy and fusion is a surgery for removing a herniated disc from your neck. To perform this surgery, the surgeon makes an incision in the throat area to reach and remove the injured disc. The surgeon will then insert a graft to fuse the bones above and below the disc. Again, a highly skilled surgeon will be necessary to perform this surgery, and those fees will affect the amount of the settlement you seek.
- Laminectomy – Laminectomy is a surgery where the surgeon removes all or part of the spinal bone (lamina). This removal can ease pressure on the spinal cord or the nerve roots that may come from an injury or a herniated disk resulting from your injury.
Contact a Long Island Neck and Back Injury Attorney Today
If you or a loved one struggle with neck and back injuries received in a personal injury accident, the attorneys at Rosenberg & Gluck can use their experience and knowledge to help resolve the financial impact of your injuries. We can bring our experience and skill to bear on your case, allowing you to negotiate a settlement or, if necessary, litigate your case.
We know how insurance companies work and know how to respond to their trained and typical responses to claims for neck and back injuries. Let us carry the burden of dealing with these contentious issues and building the best possible case for you to support the best possible settlement resulting in the complete compensation we can obtain for you.
Contact us today or call (631) 451-7900. We can provide a no-cost initial consultation and case evaluation to help you determine how to proceed in receiving compensation for your injuries.