Miami Neck Injury Attorney

If you’ve sustained a serious injury, turn to this Miami Neck Injury Lawyer. Neck injuries can be debilitating and can affect your quality of life. If this has occurred to you, you should talk to a lawyer to obtain the compensation you deserve.

Neck injuries are caused by all types of accidents. These include car accidents, slip and fall and trip & fall accidents, and medical malpractice.

One of the most common causes of neck injuries is car accidents. This is because the neck may be jerked violently in various directions during these accidents. This is referred to as “whiplash” and it can result in severe injuries – including herniated discs.

Slip & fall and trip and fall accidents may cause neck injuries in the same way.

Medical negligence may also result in neck injuries. If a doctor/surgeon makes an error or mistake during a surgical procedure or operation, then the patient can be left with catastrophic neck injuries.

There are various types of neck injuries. These include neck strains or sprains. These injuries usually aren’t permanent and heal themselves, although they may cause symptoms for a long while.

Herniated discs or disc herniations may also result from the accidents described above. This injury occurs to the intervertebral discs in your neck. The intervertebral discs are soft, fluid-filled objects located in between the vertebrae in your neck. The vertebra are the bone-like structures in your neck (you can feel them in the back of your neck). The intervertebral discs serve to protect the vertebra from each-other. That is, if the intervertebral discs didn’t exist, then the vertebrae would rub up against each other and injury would occur.

When you are involved in an accident, fluid from the intervertebral disc may leak out. This is referred to as a herniated disc.

When this fluid leaks out, it may touch, “impinge upon” or “compress” the spinal nerves or spinal cord. This can cause various symptoms throughout the body. For example, cord compression in the neck can cause pain, numbness and tingling in the arms, hands, and fingers.

At its worst chord impingement/compression in the neck can lead to paralysis and paraplegia.

A bulging disc is similar to a herniated disc, but the fluid in a bulging disc doesn’t actually leak-out of the disc. Rather, the disc just “bulges” out. However, if the bulging disc impinges/compresses the spinal nerves or spinal cord, then it can cause many of the same symptoms as a disc herniation.

A fractured vertebrae occurs when one of your vertebrae is actually broken. This is referred to as a “broken neck.” A fractured vertebrae can be detected on an x-ray, which is good at detecting bone. A herniated or bulging disc, on the other hand, is typically only detected on an MRI/CT scan – which is better at detecting “soft tissue” (i.e., not bone).

A fractured vertebrae can be either “displaced” or “non-displaced.” A displaced vertebrae means that the bone has actually shifted or moved at the fracture site. A non-displaced vertebrae indicates that there has been no movement. Although this is not always the case, non-displaced fractures are frequently treated conservatively (i.e., without surgery), while displaced fractures may require surgery.

Should you sustain a neck injury anywhere in Florida (including in Broward County, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach County), contact Mr. Quackenbush today. This Miami Neck Injury Law Firm will fight hard to win you the compensation you deserve. Call Mr. Quackenbush at 954-448-7288 to talk about your case for free.

Conservative treatment for neck injuries (i.e., not surgery) may include:

• Physical therapy
• Chiropractic treatment
• Home exercise programs

If conservative care doesn’t help, then you doctor may elect to give you pain killing injections. These injections may include “epidural injections,” “trigger point injections” or “facet-block injections” (which are typically administered into the facet-joints in your neck).

Although these injections may alleviate your symptoms temporary, they usually are not permanent solutions to your neck problems.

If all else fails, your doctor may recommend surgery. Such surgery may start with a discogram procedure. A discogram is a diagnostic procedure designed to attempt to determine exactly which intervertebral disc in your neck is causing you problems. After all, you may have several herniated or bulging discs in your neck but only one is causing you symptoms (after all, not all disc herniations or bulges are symptomatic or cause symptoms). Your doctor certainly does not want to operate on the wrong disc, so he will perform a discogram to determine which intervertebral disc is actually causing you the problems first.

Once your doctor has determined which of your intervertebral discs is causing your symptoms, he may recommend a discectomy procedure. In a discectomy, you doctor will attempt to remove the fluid that leaked out of your intervertebral disc in the accident. This will hopefully remove cord compression/impingement and alleviate your symptoms.

If it doesn’t, then your surgeon may recommend a fusion procedure. In a fusion, your doctor actually removes the entire intervertebral disc and replaces it with bone (essentially “fusing” the two adjacent vertebrae and making one large vertebrae in its place). The whole structure may then be held together using “hardware” in the form of a plate and screws.

While a fusion can be effective, it can also lead you with severe restrictions and limitations in terms of flexibility and movement (i.e., your neck may seem “stiff” after the procedure), so your doctor will typically only perform a fusion as a last resort. Additionally, a fusion procedure can lead to arthritis at the other levels of your neck as those levels now must play more of a role for movement in the neck.

A fusion can either be performed at one cervical level or multiple levels. That is, your surgeon may choose to remove one intervertebral disc or multiple discs.

All of these procedures are expensive, so it is important that you get the compensation you need to pay for your medical bills and also compensate you for your lost wages/time missed at work and pain & suffering.

Should you sustain a neck injury anywhere in Miami-Dade County (including Aventura, Coral Gables, Cutler Bay, Doral, Florida City, Hialeah, Hialeah Gardens, Homestead, Key Biscayne, Miami Beach, Miami Gardens, Miami Lakes, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Opa-Locka, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, South Miami, and Sunny Isles Beach), call Mr. Quackenbush at 954-448-7288. He will talk to you for free.