West Palm Beach Neck Injury Attorney

Should you hurt your spine, contact this West Palm Beach Neck Injury Lawyer today. A neck injury can be debilitating. It can cause serious pain, affect your quality of life, and even affect your ability to work.

Many different types of accidents can cause neck injuries. These include slip & fall and trip and fall accidents. They may also include car accidents. Finally, they may include medical malpractice or negligence.

For one, car crashes frequently result in injured necks. This is due in part to the “whiplash” type motion/movement that may occur to a vehicle occupant’s neck during a car wreck.

Slip and fall and trip & fall accidents may cause the same sort of motion.

Finally, if a doctor commits medical negligence/malpractice during a neck surgery or other surgery, then serious neck injuries may occur.

There are various kinds of neck injuries. These may include simple sprains or strains. These injuries are typically only temporary and heal on their own.

However, more serious injuries may result from the accidents above. One of the worst is bulging or herniated discs/disc bulges or herniations. A disc bulge or herniation is an injury to one of the spine’s intervertebral discs. The intervertebral discs are located in between the vertebrae (the boney structures in the spine, which you can touch in the back of your neck). They serve to “cushion” the vertebra from each other. They also allow for flexion and movement of the neck.

However, during an accident, the intervertebral discs may be injured. If fluid from the intervertebral disc escapes from the disc, the injury will be called a disc herniation/herniated disc. If it doesn’t escape but the disc “bulges” out, then the injury will be referred to as a disc bulge/bulging disc.

Either a bulging disc or a disc herniation may impinge or compress upon the nerve roots or spinal cord. This is because the spinal cord is near the area of the intervertebral discs, and there are spinal nerves all over the area.

When the injured disc impinges/compresses on the spinal chord or spinal nerves, you may experience symptoms in other areas of the body. For example, a disc bulge or herniation in the neck may lead to pain, weakness, tingling and numbness in the fingers, hands or arms.

If the cervical (i.e., neck) cord impingement/compression is severe, it can even lead to paralysis or paraplegia (inability to use the arms).

A fractured vertebrae is another type of neck injury. It is also referred to as a broken neck.

A fractured vertebra is typically diagnosed by viewing an x-ray (which is a diagnostic study used to view bones). A MRI or CT scan, on the other hand, is better used to diagnose “soft-tissue” injuries such as herniated or bulging discs.

If your fracture is displaced, it means that the bone moved or shifted during the accident or injury. In that case, your doctor will usually treat you surgically – although this is not always true. On the other hand, if the fracture is non-displaced, then your doctor may elect to treat you conservatively (i.e., without surgery) – although, again, this is not always true.

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

If you’ve sustained a neck injury, your doctor may choose to treat you in any number of ways. To begin with, you doctor may choose to treat you conservatively. This means that your doctor won’t immediately recommend surgery. Conservative treatment may include

• Chiropractic treatment
• Physical therapy
• Home exercises

If conservative care doesn’t make you feel any better, then your doctor may recommend cervical injections. These injections may include:

• Epidural injections
• Trigger point injections
• Facet-block injections

A facet-block injection is a pain-killing injection that is administered to the facet joints in your spine.

Although injections are effective at offering temporary relief, they don’t always solve your problems permanently – and symptoms may return.

Finally, if injections don’t solve your cervical problems, then the next option your doctor will consider is surgery. Before performing a surgery, your doctor may perform a discogram procedure. The purpose of this procedure is to determine which of your intervertebral discs is causing you symptoms. That is, you may have several injured intervertebral discs in your neck. Before operating, it is important for your surgeon to make sure he or she knows exactly which of these intervertebral discs is causing your symptoms. Otherwise, the doctor might operate on the wrong disc.

After determining which intervertebral disc is causing your neck problems, your doctor may perform a discectomy procedure/surgery. In a discectomy, your surgeon will remove the fluid that has leaked out of the intervertebral disc. This will hopefully relieve the cord impingement/compression and symptoms you are experiencing.

If the discectomy doesn’t help, then your doctor may consider a fusion procedure. In a fusion, your doctor will remove one of your intervertebral discs and replace it with bone (essentially “fusing” the two adjacent vertebrae together into one). The two adjacent vertebrae may then be held together using a plate and screws.

Your doctor may do this at either one cervical level (i.e., one intervertebral disc) or multiple levels (i.e., multiple intervertebral discs).

While a fusion procedure can be effective at alleviating your symptoms, it can also cause severe restriction/limitation in your ability to move your neck/your mobility as you will now have one less intervertebral disc. The fusion procedure can also lead to arthritis/degeneration in the other levels of your neck as they now bare more of the responsibility for movement in the neck.

Neck surgeries are expensive. This is why it’s extremely important that you get the compensation you deserve to pay for your medical bills, time missed from work/lost wages and get compensated for your pain & suffering.

If you’ve sustained a neck injury anywhere in Palm Beach County (including Belle Glade, Boca Raton, Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Greenacres, Jupiter, Lake Worth, Lantana, North Palm Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, Palm Springs, Riviera Beach, Royal Palm Beach and Wellington), contact Mr. Quackenbush at 954-448-7288. He will talk to you about your case for free.