Car accidents can cause a wide array of different physical injuries. A more severe motor vehicle accident can cause debilitating injuries such as spinal stenosis. This is why it is crucial to seek medical attention from paramedics as soon after the crash as you can. With these types of injuries, time is your enemy, and how fast you get treated by medical professionals can play a major role in your quality of life.
What Is Spinal Stenosis?
Spinal stenosis occurs when there is trauma forced upon the spinal cord. The pain associated with spinal stenosis stems from when the space in the spine narrows and puts pressure on the spinal cord and surrounding nerves. Spinal stenosis typically affects your lumbar spine and cervical spine. Some of the symptoms of spinal stenosis include:
- Discomfort in your lower back, neck, arms, and legs,
- Neck stiffness
- Numbness and/or tingling in your arms, hands, legs, and feet
- Burning sensation in your neck, arms, hands, and fingers
- Weakness in legs and trouble with walking
- Sudden bowel and bladder incontinence
Reach out to a medical professional immediately if you or a loved one have recently been involved in a traffic collision and are experiencing any of these symptoms. You should also consider sitting down with an experienced spinal stenosis lawyer who understands the serious nature of both your injury and the ensuing lawsuit.
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Who Typically Suffers from Spinal Stenosis?
When people hear about spinal stenosis, their minds usually immediately go to an image of an elderly person who has trouble walking. While it is true that aging is a significant factor for spinal stenosis to develop, blunt force trauma acting upon the spine is another way for someone to suffer from the affliction. This means that even a young, healthy individual can suffer from the pain of spinal stenosis if they were involved in a serious motor vehicle collision.
How Do You Get Diagnosed with Spinal Stenosis?
It can actually be quite tricky to figure out if you have spinal stenosis. This is because the symptoms of spinal stenosis do not usually start appearing until days after the car accident occurred.
You could be examined by paramedics at the scene of the accident and be found to be perfectly fine, and then a few days later, end up in the emergency room with painful symptoms from spinal stenosis. That said, it is still important to have paramedics and other medical personnel thoroughly examine you after a car crash.
Another reason why spinal stenosis is difficult to diagnose is that X-Rays cannot actually see what the problem is. They can only look at the bones, and spinal stenosis occurs in the spaces in between the bones, like the soft tissue, ligaments, and nerves. MRIs are better at helping doctors diagnose spinal stenosis.
Hiring a personal injury attorney after a motor vehicle accident is a smart idea. This is because their years of experience can help inform you about your legal options and your injuries or potential injuries like spinal stenosis.
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What Are the Treatment Options for Spinal Stenosis?
There is a slew of treatment options for this ailment. As far as medications go, doctors will usually prescribe anti-inflammatory pills and pain relievers to help with inflammation and general discomfort. You may also have to wear a brace to help support your back and regain the ability to walk.
According to the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases, your doctor will also recommend that you attend physical therapy and chiropractic care. This is to readjust your spine, strengthen your muscles, and relieve the pressure on your spinal cord. In rare circumstances, your doctor might have you take steroids to help with the inflammation and other painful symptoms. These steroids can be administered orally through a pill or by an injection in your back.
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What Is the Impact of Spinal Stenosis on Your Everyday Life?
You have already probably assumed that suffering from spinal stenosis will cost you thousands of dollars in medical bills. You would be right in that assumption, however, there are other life-altering ramifications to spinal stenosis as well. These include:
- Losing your job from missing too much work
- Having your mental health and emotional well-being spiral out of control
- Not being able to pay other bills like your mortgage due to high medical bills
- Having a strained relationship with your friends and family
Suffering from the emotional trauma of being in a car crash is already enough torture. Having to deal with spinal stenosis and all of its complications is just too much burden for one person to bear. Barrios Virguez can help by supplying you with a Duluth personal injury lawyer who knows how to handle these types of cases and help return some level of normalcy and comfort to your life.
How a Personal Injury Lawyer Can Help You?
A personal injury lawyer can help with injuries you sustained from a car accident, like spinal stenosis, in a number of ways. The three most important ways would be holding the at-fault driver accountable, negotiating with your insurance company, and securing a financial compensation package for your damages. Barrios Virguez has years of experience with all three of these important factors along with upholding your rights in the court of law.
The legal process can be quite overwhelming and stressful, and we understand that. However, it is certainly not as overwhelming and stressful as suffering from spinal stenosis all alone. Our talented and experienced attorneys have recovered over $150,000 for victims of personal injuries.
You may be entitled to financial compensation, and we intend on arguing that your compensation should be based on a bevy of factors. This includes:
- Medical bills
- Physical therapy costs
- Chiropractor costs
- Damages to your car
- Loss of wages from work
- Loss of consortium
- Overall pain and suffering
There is no sense in just suffering from the physical pain of a spinal stenosis diagnosis. You were in a serious car accident where the other driver should be found liable for the crash and held responsible for your physical injuries. Contact Barrios Virguez today and receive a free evaluation of your case with one of our personal injury attorneys.
Call or text 678-888-2222 or complete a Free Case Evaluation form
