I blogged just the other day about spine injuries and “pre-existing” or “degenerative” spinal conditions and how they can negatively impact New York personal injury and accident settlements and trials. My partner, David Kalabanka, a great Central New York personal injury lawyer, read the post and sent me the following email, which I think makes a great post itself. (By the way, David used to work as an insurance company defense lawyer in Syracuse. His job was to beat us in court! We litigated several Syracuse New York accident cases against him, and he defended them with such skill that we decided to bring him into our firm to work with us instead of against us. He came aboard about 8 years ago and never looked back. But I digress!) Here’s David’s email to me:
You should tell your readers that sometimes the injured accident victim has radicular symptoms. What are radicular symptoms? An injury may cause nerve root or a spinal cord compression or irritation. The irritation/compression follows the nerve that innervates another part of the body and cause pain there. The back is complex–and injury to a certain area of the back will cause pain in one or both feet The most commonly known back injury that causes pain elsewhere is sciatica where an injury to the back causes pain in the buttocks or the back part of the leg or calf. That is why it is so important for thorough testing, not just one time examination or review because an injury may not be what it initially appears to be. A foot pain could actually be originating at a certain level of the back and it may take the medical providers time to determine the actual source of the pain. An injury to the neck may cause pain in the elbow, wrist or hands or certain fingers depending upon where the injury in the neck is located.
Thanks, David, for your very astute email. You made today’s blog post a breeze!