Numbness and tingling may be among several symptoms that indicate you have suffered nerve damage. You should seek medical attention if you experience these symptoms, as they can potentially indicate other health problems. Even if nerve damage explains your symptoms, this serious medical issue requires a thorough evaluation.
Nerve damage often results from auto accidents, falls, animal attacks, physical assaults, and other circumstances related to negligence. You may seek compensation from liable parties, and a personal injury lawyer in Wesley Chapel experience in nerve damage cases will lead your fight for a settlement or judgment.
Possible Symptoms of Nerve Damage
Mayo Clinic explains that several types of nerve damage qualify as peripheral neuropathy. This is when nerves outside of the brain and spinal cord become damaged. Symptoms of peripheral neuropathy may include:
- Abnormal sensations: Tingling, numbness, and other changes in sensitivity may indicate nerve injuries.
- Acute pain: Besides strange sensations, you may feel sharp pain in body parts where nerve injury has occurred.
- Sensitivity to touch: Mayo Clinic notes that you may notice nerve damage when walking, touching items, and when items (like a blanket) touch damaged nerves.
- Coordination problems: Nerves are essential to proper coordination, so nerve damage can result in balance issues and other coordination difficulties.
- Muscle weakness: If you feel weakness in an area of your body that shows other indications of nerve damage, the muscle weakness can be another symptom of the injured nerves.
- Sweat-related abnormalities: Excessive sweating or a lack of sweating are each potential symptoms of nerve damage.
Damage to sensory, motor, and autonomic nerves may produce different symptoms. Any time you sense that your body is responding abnormally, further investigation is necessary.
How Medical Professionals Can Diagnose Nerve Damage
Medical professionals may use multiple methods to diagnose your nerve damage, including:
- Physical examination: A doctor can diagnose nerve damage by evaluating your physical symptoms. They may have you describe sensations and pain as they manipulate body parts with possible nerve damage.
- Electromyography (EMG): This test can indicate electrical activity in injured body parts. An EMG may help diagnose damage to nerves and the myelin sheath that encompasses nerves.
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI): An MRI scans nerve-rich body parts and can rule out (or identify) additional health conditions contributing to your symptoms, such as inflammation.
- Ultrasonography: Ultrasounds can identify the size of nerves, which may provide the doctor with valuable information about the cause and nature of nerve-related injuries.
These are just a few methods a qualified medical provider may use to diagnose your injuries and formulate a treatment plan.
Potential Treatments for Nerve Injuries
Johns Hopkins presents several possible treatments for peripheral nerve injuries, including:
- Acupuncture
- Massage therapy
- Medication
- Orthotics
- Physical therapy and rehabilitation
The cause and details of your injuries will determine what kinds of treatments can alleviate your symptoms and promote recovery.
Did Your Nerve Damage Result from Someone Else’s Negligence?
Nerve injuries can result from progressive or spontaneous health issues, but they can also result from traumatic events. Many of these traumatic events occur because of one or more people’s negligence, and these events may include:
- Car accidents
- Truck accidents
- Motorcycle accidents
- Pedestrian accidents
- Slip and falls
- Trip and falls
- Physical attacks (which may occur, in part, because of negligent security)
- Exposure to toxic chemicals
- Accidents caused by defective products
- Animal attacks (including but not limited to dog bites)
- Other circumstances that may have been preventable if someone had taken proper precautionary measures
Whenever someone’s negligence causes you to suffer nerve damage or other injuries, you are entitled to compensation for medical costs, pain and suffering, and other damages.
What to Do If Negligence Caused You to Suffer Nerve Injuries
If you suspect or know that someone’s negligence caused your nerve injuries, you should:
Seek Medical Attention to Diagnose and Treat Your Injuries
Whether or not you plan to pursue compensation for your injuries, get medical attention from a qualified doctor. You may need to see a nerve injury specialist, but you can start by seeing your primary care doctor. They will refer you to specialists who can thoroughly diagnose and treat your injuries.
Retain a Nerve Injury Lawyer to Pursue Compensation for Injury-Related Damages
Nerve injuries can limit you physically. Such injuries may also cause substantial psychological and emotional distress, meaning you may be unwilling or unable to handle the demands of a claim or lawsuit.
A nerve injury attorney will consult your doctors, detail your damages, and handle every aspect of your insurance claim or lawsuit.
Reasons to Hire an Attorney to Seek Fair Compensation for Your Nerve Damage
Every person who hires a lawyer should know why they are doing so. Some common reasons for hiring nerve injury lawyers include:
- The attorney’s experience with nerve injury cases: Lawyers understand the steps necessary to successfully complete a nerve injury case. These lawyers have investigated the causes of nerve injuries, detailed injury-related damages, negotiated fair settlements, and secured financial recoveries at trial.
- Your physical and psychological limitations: Let’s say you are an attorney who is technically capable of completing an insurance claim or lawsuit. Even so, the symptoms of your nerve injuries can make it too difficult and stressful to build a successful case.
- A lawyer’s willingness to pay for your case: Nerve injury attorneys (or their firms) typically pay the cost of their cases. The client agrees to pay the law firm if they succeed, but the firm pays all case-related costs and fees. This is called a contingency fee.
- Experts and other resources (provided by your lawyer): Because they are always handling civil cases, attorneys can afford to retain experts, reconstruct harmful accidents, and take other measures that may improve a nerve injury case. Attorneys build these services into their fee structure, so these resources pose no additional cost to the client.
Those who hire nerve injury attorneys have one important thing in common. These individuals want to receive fair compensation for their injuries and trust a lawyer to deliver that compensation.
How a Nerve Damage Attorney Will Assist You
A nerve injury lawyer will work to secure your financial recovery as soon as possible, building your claim or lawsuit by:
Determining and Documenting the Cause of the Nerve Injuries
Your legal team will detail the cause of your nerve damage. Whether you were in an auto accident or injured in other circumstances, your attorney will likely seek:
- Witness accounts of the circumstances (like a slick floor caused by a leaking pipe) that led you to suffer your injuries
- Witness accounts of a specific event (like an auto collision) that caused your injuries
- Expert testimony about the cause of your injuries and liability for that cause
- Photographs and videos of dangerous conditions that produced your injuries (like a loose carpet in a business where you tripped and fell)
- Any police reports related to your injuries
A nerve injury lawyer can use countless types of evidence in a case. Your lawyer will pursue every piece of evidence that increases your case’s probability of success.
Working with Your Doctor to Detail Injuries and Treatment
Your attorney will become as close to an expert as possible regarding your injuries. They will work with your doctors to:
- Understand the specifics of your injuries and the symptoms they are causing
- Secure ultrasounds, EMGs, MRIs, and any other medical images showing your injuries
- Take photographs of any visible injuries
- Obtain formal diagnoses of your nerve injuries and symptoms
- Obtain a treatment plan and estimates (and bills) for the cost of treatment
- Understand how your injuries will affect you well into the future
Some types of nerve damage are permanent, while others may heal at various rates. Your lawyer will secure all necessary medical documentation related to your injuries.
Documenting Your Injury-Related Damages
In addition to medical bills and documents, your attorney may document your damages with:
- Your account of the psychological and emotional toll your nerve injuries have taken
- Mental health experts’ accounts of any pain and suffering related to your nerve injuries
- Employment documents that prove you are unable to work (and are not earning your usual income) because of nerve damage
- Any other documentation that helps prove the full cost of your nerve injuries
Any settlement you receive (this is the most common way of resolving nerve injury cases) will reflect both economic and non-economic harm caused by your nerve damage.
Calculating Your Case Value
Attorneys calculate precise settlement targets after considering their client’s financial and non-economic damages.
Your injuries may cause several types of non-economic damages, with pain and suffering likely being the most prominent. Attorneys can use the per-diem method or multiplier method to calculate the cost of such non-economic damages.
Negotiating a Settlement
Your lawyer will negotiate a settlement with the parties obligated to cover your damages. Depending on how your injuries happened, your attorney may negotiate first with insurance companies.
If you pursue a lawsuit against liable parties, your lawyer may need to negotiate a financial agreement with the liable parties’ civil defense attorneys.
Completing Trial (if Necessary)
Trials can be months- or years-long processes that involve:
- Exchanging evidence and witness lists in advance of the trial
- Conducting a recorded deposition during which attorneys will question parties involved in the trial
- Final settlement negotiations
- Opening arguments
- Presentation of witnesses and evidence in court
- Closing arguments
Attorneys often settle nerve injury cases before a trial becomes necessary. That said, your attorney should be willing to go to trial if liable parties aren’t offering a fair settlement.
Damages That Can Result from Nerve Damage
Your damages will be at the top of your lawyer’s priority list, as they will determine how much compensation you deserve. Recoverable damages in nerve injury cases can include:
Medical Expenses
You’ve read that nerve injuries may require:
- Multiple forms of diagnostic imaging
- One or more physical examinations
- Appointments with nerve injury specialists
- Various treatments to alleviate symptoms
Medical care is rarely cheap (or even affordable), and you should not have to pay medical bills for injuries you did not bring upon yourself. Your attorney will calculate the cost of diagnosing and treating your injuries and demand that liable parties pay that cost.
Physical Pain
Physical pain will be part of the “pain and suffering” category of damages. Such pain can significantly impair your quality of life and is a key consideration in any nerve injury case.
Psychological and Emotional Hardship
Your attorney will gauge the psychological and emotional toll of your nerve injuries, which may include:
- Emotional anguish
- Psychological distress
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (in cases where nerve injuries result from a traumatic event like an automotive accident)
- Depression
- Sleeplessness
- Mood and personality changes
- Lost quality of life
Your attorney may work with capable, familiar mental health experts to diagnose your pain and suffering, develop a treatment plan, and value these damages.
Mental Health Treatment Expenses
Your attorney will calculate the cost of any medications, therapies, or other mental health treatment expenses you incur because of nerve injuries.
Professional Damages
If your injuries interfere with your work, you may suffer:
- Lost income
- Lessened earning power
- Lost bonuses
- Missed promotion cycles
- Lost benefits
- Lost psychological benefits you derive from regular employment
If you have scars or other disfigurement associated with your nerve injuries, your attorney will include those blemishes (and any cosmetic treatment you pursue) in your case.
There Is No Direct Cost to Hire a Nerve Injury Attorney
Nerve injury lawyers lower the financial barrier to hiring them so that anyone with nerve injuries can get legal representation. Contingency fees are a structure in which:
- You pay no upfront fees or costs to your law firm
- The firm pays the entire cost of completing your case
- Your lawyer only receives a fee if they obtain a settlement or judgment for you
Yes, you can afford to hire a nerve injury lawyer today.
Time Is of the Essence When Hiring a Nerve Damage Attorney
Your lawyer must collect evidence and file your case before the statute of limitations expires, so don’t wait to retain a nerve damage attorney. Seek your free consultation today.