Johnston Car Accident Injury Attorneys

Nerve Damage and Nerve Impingement After a Johnston Car Accident

One injury that frequently slows car accident victims down, and is often overlooked in the immediate aftermath of a crash, is nerve damage. These injuries can lead to debilitating pain that prevents the victim from participating in activities they enjoyed before the accident. The bills and damages associated with nerve injuries often warrant filing a claim with an experienced Iowa car accident attorney.

What Is Nerve Impingement?

Nerve impingement, also commonly known as a pinched nerve, is a condition that develops when a nerve is damaged from being compressed by hard tissue such as bone or cartilage. Common compressors that cause this condition include a bulging disc, a bone spur, or a misaligned joint in the spine. Car accidents create precisely the type of sudden, forceful impact that can push these structures out of alignment and directly onto nearby nerves.

Nerve impingement is not only painful at the site of the pinched nerve itself, but it can also hinder the function and mobility of adjoining muscles and joints throughout the body. A pinched nerve can result in a wide variety of uncomfortable and disabling sensations, including tingling, numbness, muscle weakness, and pain that radiates to other parts of the body well beyond the original injury site.

How the Nervous System Is Affected

Although nerve impingement may not be one of the more outwardly apparent signs of trauma from a crash, it can be deeply debilitating due to the constant pain the victim experiences. Think of your nervous system as a superhighway made up of many exit ramps that allow nerve signals to move freely throughout the body. When one of those exit ramps is affected by a pinched nerve, proper function is disrupted and pain or numbness can spread well beyond the original injury site.

Because nerve injuries are often internal and not immediately visible on standard imaging, they can be underestimated by insurance adjusters evaluating your claim. Having an attorney who understands how these injuries are documented and valued is critical to making sure the full impact of your nerve damage is accounted for. You can also read more about nerve damage and car accidents on the Walker, Billingsley and Bair website.

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) After a Car Wreck

For many accident victims, the pain from an initial injury fades as healing progresses. But for a significant number of people, that pain never goes away and actually intensifies over time. Chronic, escalating pain after an Iowa car accident may be a condition known as Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, or CRPS.

What Is CRPS?

CRPS is a type of chronic pain that develops in a previously injured limb and persists long after the initial injury has healed. In 90 percent of CRPS cases, a traumatic event is identified as the cause of the pain, though some people develop CRPS for no clearly identifiable reason. For people who develop CRPS after a car wreck, it typically begins with one of the following initial injuries:

There are two recognized forms of CRPS. One form involves confirmed nerve damage, while the other presents with seemingly no detectable nerve damage. Both forms share the same set of symptoms, which can include the following:

The most common and notable symptom of CRPS is the pain itself, which is typically described by patients as being more severe than the original injury that triggered it. Many CRPS patients report that the pain feels like burning or a persistent "pins and needles" sensation, which can flare to such extreme sensitivity levels that even the lightest brush against the skin becomes excruciating.

Diagnosing CRPS

Doctors do not have a single definitive diagnostic test to confirm CRPS. Instead, the diagnostic process involves ruling out other conditions with similar symptoms, such as arthritis, muscle diseases, clotted veins, and diabetic nerve pain. In some cases, MRI scans can identify CRPS-related bone changes that support a diagnosis.

This complexity in diagnosis is part of why CRPS claims can be challenging to pursue without experienced legal representation. Insurance companies may attempt to minimize or dispute a CRPS diagnosis precisely because it is difficult to confirm through a single objective test.

Treatment and Long-Term Prognosis for CRPS

There is currently no single established protocol for treating CRPS, and ongoing management is necessary for most patients in order to maintain a reasonable quality of life. Rehabilitation often goes hand-in-hand with medication therapy, which may involve drugs used for pain management and muscle inflammation, among other conditions. Depression after a car accident is a real and recognized problem that often accompanies CRPS and may also require medication. Blocking or removing the sympathetic nerves has shown mixed results, with success varying significantly from patient to patient.

CRPS can gradually improve on its own over time. Children and young adults typically have a better recovery outlook. Older adults, particularly those over the age of 40, tend to heal more slowly and may suffer the effects of CRPS for much longer, and in some cases permanently. The long-term, potentially lifelong nature of this condition is central to calculating appropriate compensation for victims.

PTSD After a Car Accident in Johnston, Iowa

Car accident victims often focus on physical recovery, but the psychological toll of a serious crash can be just as disabling as any broken bone or spinal injury. Post-traumatic stress disorder is one of the most significant psychological injuries that accident victims in Johnston and throughout Iowa may experience, and it is fully compensable under Iowa law when it results from another party's negligence.

What Is PTSD and Who Is Affected?

PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. It is common among people who have experienced a severe or traumatic life event, such as a serious car accident, a violent event, a wartime experience, or another emotionally shocking and difficult situation. While PTSD does not develop in everyone who experiences trauma, both children and adults who have lived through or witnessed a dangerous event may develop this anxiety disorder.

Symptoms of PTSD in Car Accident Victims

According to the National Institutes of Mental Health, the most common symptoms of PTSD fall into three categories: re-experiencing symptoms, avoidance symptoms, and hyper-arousal symptoms. Within each category, a victim of PTSD may display a range of behaviors and emotional responses. For adults, these symptoms commonly include:

For children, the symptoms of PTSD may present differently and can include forgetting how to talk, wetting the bed, acting out the traumatic event through play, or becoming exceptionally needy and clingy with parents or caregivers.

Treatment Options for PTSD

PTSD can be a debilitating mental disorder that prevents an individual from enjoying his or her life or functioning normally in daily activities. Treatment for PTSD may include professional therapy, meditation, and medication such as antidepressants and anti-anxiety prescription drugs. Those who suffer from PTSD are encouraged to talk with trusted confidantes about their experience, follow up consistently with their family doctors, and try to gradually return to participating in daily activities and routines.

Professional therapy options for PTSD include stress inoculation therapy, cognitive restructuring, and exposure therapy. Each approach addresses different aspects of the disorder and can be combined depending on the severity of the individual's symptoms and their response to treatment.

PTSD Is a Compensable Injury in Iowa Car Accident Cases

Not all car accident injuries are physical. If you are a car accident victim who suffers from PTSD, you may be entitled to compensation for your psychological injuries in addition to your physical ones. If your quality of life has been impaired, you have suffered emotional damages related to your PTSD, you face high medical and therapy expenses, or you have missed work due to psychological impairment following your accident, those losses can and should be included in your claim.

Why Johnston Car Accident Victims Need Experienced Legal Representation

The three conditions covered in this article share an important characteristic: they are all injuries that may not be immediately obvious after a crash, that develop or worsen over time, and that insurance companies frequently challenge or undervalue. When a victim is living with a nerve impingement that radiates pain throughout their body, a CRPS diagnosis that may last for the rest of their life, or a PTSD disorder that makes it impossible to get behind the wheel without experiencing panic, the full impact of the accident extends far beyond what any first settlement offer will typically reflect.

An experienced Johnston car accident attorney understands how to document and present these complex injury types, how to work with medical experts to establish the connection between the crash and the diagnosis, and how to negotiate aggressively with insurance companies that would prefer to minimize a claim or deny it entirely. For a free introductory resource, you can request a copy of The Legal Insider's Guide to Iowa Car Accidents: 7 Secrets to Not Wreck Your Case at no cost or obligation.

More Info on Johnston Attorneys