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What If My Back and Neck Injuries Symptoms Are Delayed
Learn why back and neck injuries often take hours, days, or weeks to develop and what to do if you’ve suffered an accident and think your symptoms might be delayed.
If you work out or are a sports fan, you know that after a session at the gym or after Clayton Kershaw pitches a game for the Dodgers, soreness might not settle in until hours or even days later. And that’s just a workout or a game, not a violent or jarring personal injury accident.
While delayed injuries can occur anywhere in your body, they are most prevalent with back and neck injuries. One reason for this is that the average adult’s head weighs approximately 11 pounds and with enough force can sling shot in any direction, putting extreme torque on the neck and the spine. Another reason is that each section of the spine – the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar – is very flexible and susceptible to twisting, shearing, and tweaking during sudden, rapid movements.
Neck and Back Injuries Can Develop from Several Type of Accidents
Accidents create forces and physics on the body that push, pull, strain, and sprain muscle tissue, ligaments, tendons, joints, and bones. Accidents that impart a great deal of force on the body can include:
- Car accidents, including whiplash
- SUV and light truck accidents
- Commercial trucking accidents
- Slip and falls
- Trip and falls
- Bicycle accidents
- Pedestrian versus vehicle accidents
Seeking Medical Attention is Crucial to Diagnose Your Personal Injuries
Neck and back injuries are often delayed because the adrenaline, excitement, and shock of the accident acts as a protective mechanism that masks the immediate pain. Also, when your body’s tissues are stretched and torn, chemicals and toxins are released and these often take awhile to get to nerves and be communicated to the brain as pain and injury.
The problem with delayed injuries, unlike immediately recognized injuries like broken bones, cuts, burns, and others, is that insurance companies and their savvy lawyers use this delayed-onset affect to create doubt about the injury itself or the cause of the injury. This is why it is critical to always be evaluated by medical providers immediately after an accident so the accident is documented, all body parts are assessed, and you may begin a recorded history of your treatment. Moreover, in many cases while your body doesn’t feel pain an x-ray, MRI, cat-scan or other diagnostic tool can find damaged tissues or structures.
Attorneys Handling Personal Injury Accident in Los Angeles
If you’ve suffered a personal injury accident with immediate and/or delayed symptoms, please know we have experienced, aggressive award-winning trial lawyers to champion all aspects of your case to maximize your recovery. Call for a no-charge case evaluation at 800-818-1818. If there’s no recovery, there’s no fee!