If you have a neck fusion, it’s often the result of a nerve injury in the discs in your neck. If that happens and there is a delay in medical treatment, the nerve damage can be permanent. You can go from injury free to feeling like your life is ruined forever.
If you end up having a neck fusion, typically the nerves have one year to regenerate after the surgery. Once that time passes, you are usually as good as you are going to get. If you have pain every day, that’s probably how it will be for the rest of your life. Epidural steroid injections, nerve blocks and pain medication can help, but they can only do so much.
We are not doctors and aren’t trying to give anyone medical advice. That said, we deal with neck injuries all of the time. I just finished a heart breaking phone call with a trucker who is in great despair because his doctor explained to him that he’s as good as he’s going to get. Unfortunately for him, that means constant pain, no sleeping and an inability to return to his old job.
Part of the reason this trucker ended up this way is because his medical care was delayed for six months due to some b.s. insurance adjuster that was playing games with his life. So I’m writing this post to encourage anyone with a major injury to get the medical treatment that they need and do whatever they can to avoid delays. He had a lawyer who didn’t file any trial motions or do what was needed to get him the proper care and now his life is ruined forever.
Often a work comp insurance company will try to get you to put your medical care through your group health provider. This is to save them money. Typically we tell our clients not to do this, but if you have a nerve injury, you can’t mess around. Get the treatment that you need, even if your group insurance has to pay for it initially. We’ll make sure that the work comp people reimburse them and that all out of pocket expenses are paid back to you as well.
It’s not an ideal way to handle things and we still do whatever we can to make the insurance company responsible right away. But nothing is more important than your health and since once these problems exist to a while they can’t be fixed, we really encourage you not to mess around.
Neck injuries can be really frightening. Like anything else, you have to look out for you. If you let the adjuster play games, they may ruin your life.
We are workers’ compensation attorneys who help people with Illinois work injuries anywhere in IL via our statewide network of attorneys. Contact us and we will answer your questions or find the right lawyer for your situation.
